Y'all would have been laughing if you were here today. I tried to solve a problem with a corrupted non-OS program on old and slow computer. The computer is mainly used for crunching (distributed computing), but is also my third backup computer. Keeping the computer running has become a "game" as it's pushing 10 years old; computer is a Dell P3 originally 500 MHz and I upgraded the CPU to 1 gig years ago. RAM is max for the board -- 768! Original MB, PS, and HD. Video card was replaced years ago, NIC added, and CD burner added.

First thought was Acronis disk image backup, but it was corrupted. (I did do a new image backup that was valid after I discovered the problem and before I started messing with the computer to solve the problem.) My second thought was system restore, but I forgot how old and slow the 'puter is and started banging on keys before everything came back up after the restore and fried the OS: The computer went into a endless loop of rebooting. Tried system restore from safe mode many time, no joy. Tried system repair -- still no joy.

I finally restored the disk image backup that I did today to get the system back, then I used Windows system restore to get to a point before the original software problem. I stayed away from the computer during the Windows system restore to make sure it was done "doing it's thing" before I touched the keyboard. Yeah! Three or four hours later my system was running again with the problem solved. I created a new Windows system restore point and then created a new disk image backup.

*****Note to self: do disk image backups and set system restore points once a month all my "important" computers! I have five computers and one laptop.*****

At one point today, I thought about nuking the computer and reinstalling the OS from scratch, but that's no fun and I would have spent more time downloading Windows updates, getting programs loaded back, and messing with services and the various tweaks I always do.

Bottom line is that I am a happy girl now and pleased that I was able to get the system back without a clean install.