blackest_k's Journal: when windows goes down

It seems to be inevitable that sooner or later some nasty piece of spyware or virus is going to bring down your windows system and you will be forced to reinstall the operating system and because of the registry all your application files as well.

So how best can you protect yourself when this happens? Norton ghost seems an almost ideal solution. A clean windows install, all the applications you use setup and ready to go.

however the problem is the user data and settings is it possible to maintain these on d: drive and be able to restore a ghost image without losing data, Email seems to be the most difficult to preserve. often the choice of where your address book and your mail resides is made by the email program and not by the user.

is it possible to keep user data away from the c: drive or has Microsofts design team ensured that in the event of losing your operating system you have the choice of losing your data and system configuration or long hours reinstalling applications, leaving orphaned program files.

Is it possible to have a system back in a clean and stable condition in under an hour without committing yourself to daily, hourly backups just in case.

can the updates to your applications, virus definitions, spyware definitions extensions to firefox and bookmarks be automatically setup once the image has been restored.

has anyone got a good rescue plan to save thier pc or is it inevitable some data loss is going to occur?
I ask you the slashdot readership for your thoughts and advice. on the best strategy to ensure as painless a restore as possible.