Yes, a pain, but I get to do things differently too, things I know & learned over time on the last installation that I knew I could have done better.)
I used to feel exactly the same way, but as I have gotten older I've realized that I don't enjoy installing Os's, applications, and drivers all day. The number one thing I loose on a re-install is time. I can think of so many things I'd rather be doing it scares me

. So that's why I use Norton Ghost, but there's a ton of great backup titles. I also hate going through every program and digging my way through thousands of settings dialogues to get things just the way I want them. So I back it up. And yes if things get really screwed up (after worm virusses for example) then yes I re-install too.
Does anyone know of any freeware backup titles worth a damn? I have RawRead/RawWrite which is an internal microsoft tool (not to be mistaken with the freeware floppy tool). However rawread only supports Fat12,16, and 32 and doesn't support resizing. So if you have a backup and your HD dies and you try to restore it to a larger drive you're hosed

. Lame no?