I've always thought reformatting was what you did if you were sent to hell in the next life - always reformatting, over and over! So if I can do this instead, it will be better!
For the future, I suggest you make images. Keep a couple of the early ones and then make one per week and keep 3 or 4 on a continuing basis. Then you can always bail yourself out in 20 to 30 minutes.
System Manufacturer/Model Number HP, Dell, Gateway, Toshiba - 4 laptops and 2 desktops OS Vista, Windows7, Mint Mate, Zorin, Windows 8 CPU from 1.6GHz Duo to i7 Monitor(s) Displays 2x HP w2207
Keyboard with trackball - no mices Mouse Trackball mice Hard Drives 5x HDD, 7x SSD, 12x Externals Internet Speed DSL 6000
As per the WHS advice System Images are your best "get out of jail" card even if your HDD bites the dust. I gave up on restore points a long time ago. Macrium Reflect is a good product.
I have made images with Macrium on a regular basis but I suspect the problems go back to Jan. or earlier because that's when the system restore seems to have stopped working.
I'm just going to leave it off for now. I used to have GoBack for decades and it bailed me out so many times. It was hard to give it up. Macrium Reflect seems good but I haven't had to restore an image yet.