The starting measure is to see that you have a trustworthy backup functioning on your computer. Many individuals do not think about the future day when their computer could kick the bucket, and never setup a trusted backup. This lands them in the
computer repair shop. You should invariably backup any pivotal info on your system because computer parts can kick the bucket at any time and without warning. If your hard drive kicked the bucket today the only guarantee that you would be able to recoup anything at all would be to have a tested backup in place. There is not a backup that exists that is effective 100% percent of the time so you want to have more than one copy of your critical data, just in case.
When you choose a backup software you should go for something that produces a copy of everything on your system, this is called a "disk image". With a disk image backup in place, you will only have to reinstate the image if your computer gets overrun with spyware, or in the event of a hard disk failure. After producing an image of your hard drive you will not have to worry about losing all your settings or any of the programs that have been set up on your computer over time. When you restore your backup you will have a computer that works and is only missing the latest security updates.
Software like Norton Ghost or Macrium Reflect can restore your entire system and all your application programs in less time than it would call for you just to install Windows itself. Forget the time in which you must reinstall any operating system and associated important applications for the activities you do on your computer, plus their reconfiguration during computer repair. The only downside lies in the fact that you have to pay for some money to buy the backup computer programs.
