Raven THANK you so much for your reply above. I had already removed the fooz kids, McAfee, Acer games, Norton online, after that graphic was saved to post when I couldn't upload it. I shall remove some of what you have mentioned. I did install Chrome so that is probably why that is shown there. Mikie, I shall read your link after this send. I was wondering if more memory could be added to that little gem to give it a boost? Thanks. YAY PB is working so I can post this graphic. I didn't do that yet as I was wondering if it was going to call for a disc to put it on.

Ah, it just occurred to me that earlier today, because a folder I had had on my bookmarks toolbar had disappeared (and doesn't seem to have been misplaced somewhere else under another name, as happened once or twice before, my fault), I tried to restore my FF profile from Mozy. Being timid about it, though, I tried to save it to the desktop and have not put the files into my FF folder under Applications, etc. Nevertheless, it is not on the desktop, so it may have gone into my FF folder. If I delete my "profile," would that solve matters? But it would be a disaster for me if I should lose all my bookmarks.

Hi RC,I've followed this thread from beginning to end and understand what is posted here. What I need to know now is where is this snapshot of the os image stored for future use? Surely it's burned to a dvd,a secondary hd or an external hd, etc. Am I on track so far? Somewhere in the future the original hd crashes, malfunctions or just quits. Do I then physically remove it, set the secondary hd on which exists the snap shot, to primary function, if this be my chosen media, and boot up? If I had chosen to go the dvd route, do I replace the old hd with a new one and use the dvd to install the snap shot image? And in case of an external hd, can it's content incuding the snapshot image be copied over to the new hd? I realize we're covering a lot of ground here and I beg your patience. Please keep it simple as possible. I'd like to get this issue staight in my mind one time. I also understand this can only be done with the original computer the os was installed on. Thanks.

Typically the slightly fancier (read expensive) external hard drives come with more comprehensive software. That's not to say, you couldn't back-up manually, use Window's back-up software, or find some freeware that will accomplish the same thing. I would suggest sticking to drives made by Western Digital or Seagate. They seem to have the best track record for reliability. A second, off-site, backup plan is a better plan. While an external drive will be helpful in case of a hardware it won't help in the of something like a fire. There are online options or you could, depending on the size of your back-up, burn DVDs and put them in a safety deposit box or send them to a trusted relative or friend.