New
#11
Ckmerc;
If you image before activation, the only shortcoming would be that if you restore that image, you would have to reactivate.
Regarding imaging: imaging programs typically allow you to image C only or C and other partitions combined into a single image.
If you image your data, you have to beware of the following possibility:
Supposed you make a single image containing C and your data on September 1.
On September 3, you do a lot of significant work on your PC. Maybe you create or acquire 500 mp3 files.
On September 5, you have a major system problem on C and decide to restore your image to fix it.
So you restore your September 1 image.
Your September 1 image does NOT contain the 500 mp3s. Your data as of September 5 is overwritten. You no longer have the 500 mp3 files. That data is gone because of the restoration.
For that reason, among others, I think it is best to make separate file by file backups of data. I confine images to C only and never rely on them to work.