I just create a system partition for the OS and Programs, and a personal partition for all my files ducuments/media/pictures/downloads etc.. And then all I need to do is reformat the system partition and install the OS and Programs, it only takes me a few hours to complete. I like to do this about every six months, and I do a reformat of the whole drive about onece a year, no mater how well you maintain your system through maintanance routines you data will slowly degrade or decay over time, and you will need to reformat and reinstall. But this all really boils down to personal taaste, I'm a bit fanatical about my system, and I think this seems to work for me, though these are old habits they're hard to break. Let the formating begin...Let's get ready to format. hehe :) oh well now I'm just rambling on. :)