Computer Crased Question about Restore and Proper Restart

[rwbil]

I restarted my gateway laptop with Windows 7 and it would not boot. I left windows repair run all night and by some miracle it fixed the problem. I now have 3 questions:

1) Is there a proper procedure when restarting ones computer so this does not happen again.

2) I looked at my restore points and I only have 1 and 10GB allocated. How does one tell how much space each restore point takes up

3) In case this did not work or my hard drive had died. What program are available to backup everything such that I can restore and get my windows back and all the programs and files and all the programs work without reinstalling

 

[ThrashZone]

1. Troubleshooting for win-7,
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/220165-troubleshooting-steps-windows-7-a.html
Optimizing windows,
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/11728-optimize-windows-7-a.html
2. http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/330-system-protection-turn-off.html
3. This Backup utility is popular here,
http://www.sevenforums.com/backup-restore/43219-image-your-system-free-macrium.html