I am planning on reinstalling Vista. If I backup and restore disk image, wouldn't that defeat the purpose?
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M$2 Answers
I would also STRONGLY suggest you purchase an external Hard Drive that you keep a backup of all of your files on. Not only does this protect your files from being ruined if there is a problem with your computer but makes it much easier if/when you need to do reinstalls, since your files are already backed up.
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M$
If you have little spare time, that fifty bucks for a 40-80GB drive will save you 1-3 hours in copying/backup before you can re-use an original drive. Depending on your hourly rate, this will pay for itself before you're finished with the OS installation.
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M$
No way to improve on that answer. Reimaging is agony.