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This post assumes a working knowledge of Windows and Linux, but if you're the family tech support guy, then you're probably good to go.

Whenever I build or rebuild a computer for my family I always plan ahead. I leave about 20 GB free at the end of the hard drive for a restore partition. What this restore partition does is allow me to image their newly installed (and clean) hard drive for future restore.

As you know, once that PC is out of your hands it will be infected with every virus and piece of malware known to man. If your relatives are like my parents, then every person who comes to their house must bring a CD or DVD full of infected software resulting in endless calls to me because "it's slow" or "the computer is acting weird".

Here is my Hard Drive layout.

Install Windows and Applications

I then go ahead and install the necessary software programs on the D: drive. Here's what I typically give them (in addition to the Antivirus software I already mentioned).

I use free software when I can. They brought me the PC because they are too cheap to pay to get it fixed so we all know there's no money coming our way. Ah the curse of being the family IT guy!

Once I get the extra software packages all installed (on the D: drive) I re-scan with Antivirus.

Linux Install (Dual Boot) aka restore partitionNow comes the fun part, I reboot off of a linux CD (typically Debian or Ubuntu) and install a "core" system on the partition I originally set aside at the very end of the hard drive.

Here's where the magic happens. I chose a core install so I do all of this via command line in a shell. After the install reboot and make sure that you have the grub boot loader options for linux and for Windows listed.

Once you are booted into linux log in and modify the grub loader to simplify it. I like it to have Windows listed first and as the default OS then below that have it say "Emergency Restore CAUTION" instead of "linux" or whatever it would have said before.

Install partimage and sudo packages with this command: "apt-get install partimage sudo"

Imaging and minor shell scriptingVerify your partition names with "fdisk -l". I have /dev/hda1 yours might be /dev/sda1 or some other setup. Make sure to use whatever your C: drive corresponds to instead of /dev/hda1.

create an image of the c: drive for restore purposes"partimage -b -z1 -c -d -o save /dev/hda1 /opt/Windows-image-file"

Now there should be a fairly large file in /opt called Windows-image-file (or whatever you called it)

I then create a script in /opt called partimage-restore.sh (again make sure to use your partition if it's not /dev/hda1)

#!/bin/shsudo partimage restore -b -z1 -f2 /dev/hda1 /opt/Windows-image-file

Make sure to "chmod +x /opt/partimage-restore.sh" so that the file is executable.

Here's where I like to run the script "/opt/partimage-restore.sh" in theory it should reimage the c: drive then auto reboot.

If it successfully reimages the windows partition and reboots, check out the Windows install and make sure it all works properly.

If all is well reboot, go back into linux.

Now the real test. Log out of linux, log back in as "restore" and the reimage should auto run and reboot. If not something is amiss, read this post again or Google that stuff. If it does work, return PC tonaiveend user, I mean "really great close relative".

Happy Ending to the Inevitable support callNow next time your relatives, friends, or other high maintenance support user calls you with "it's slow" or "it's just not working right", you can walk them through the restore procedure:

Since we backed up files, moved My Documents to D: and we installed all applications on D: there should be very little data loss.

This makes full PC restore a matter of minutes instead of a phone call that lasts for hours.