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I make drive images of my Primary XP C: and F: drives regularly. Installed program files don't change often. I have my programs' preferences set to store data files on F:\Documents and Settings\. I don't need to backup G:\ very often, only when I install a new program, or uninstall an old one. Of course, when I make a new image of G:\, I also make a new image of C:\ and F:\. And the one image of G: works for the primary XP installation and the parallel installation. My parallel installation needs backup much less frequently.

My M:\ drive is just my CD library ripped to the computer, so I don't really need to backup this drive either. If I lost this drive, I still have all my CD's, and would just rip them again. Of course, this is a personal preference. Someone else may choose to make a drive image of music files.

P:\ drive is the target for my digital camera. I make images of this drive regularly, when I add image files.

V:\ is for temporary use for video editing, and I burn the final edit to DVD, so I don't make images of this drive at all.

I:\ drive is just the pagefile, serves both installations, and needs no backup.

Using multiple partitions, defragmenting is quick and easy. According to Microsoft, having a permanent pagefile on a dedicated partition keeps it from ever becoming fragmented. Making backups is simplified, so I actually do it regularly. And these are backups that will get me up and running again in a matter of minutes.

I'm certain that many will say that this setup won't work properly; I'm sorry, but it does. I've tested it extensively, even from one drive to another, and it just works. I used nLite to customize what has become my primary installation, so programs default to G:\, and Documents and Settings default to F:\. I edited the registry in my parallel installation to accomplish the same thing: programs default to G:\, and Documents and Settings default to S:\. I used Internet options in IE7 to relocate temporary Internet files for all users on this machine to E:\.

I run Microsoft Security Essentials as services for all users, and have nightly scans run automatically- I never turn this machine off. I dump temporary files, run manual malware scans with SUPERAntispyware, Malwarebytes, and HJT and then defragment before I make an image of any partition.

And maybe the best benefit of all? I haven't done a reformat/reinstall since Windows 95 OSR2.