I am using a laptop which is partitioned to c (10 gig) and F(50 gig) -
what would be a foolproof system to backup the machine? I mean I am
making a weekly image of c to F and I keep a copy of F on an external
drive - but what happens if I want to move to a different laptop? say
this laptop drowns and I want to use this opportunity to buy a
different type of laptop (not saying that I don't like my Fujitsu
lifebook but this could happen one day) - is there a way to save the
hours of reinstalling all the programs and configuring the computer
again?
thanks

mika77,

One way that I have found to back up a laptop with similar hardware is
to use a Knoppix Boot CD and copy all files to external storage. 
Norton Ghost is a software solution that can make an image of your
computer, partitions and all.

Using Knoppix, if you were to have a hard drive failure, you would:
1.  replace the drive
2.  boot from the cd
3.  partition it in a similar fashion
4.  copy the files from the external storage to the disk partitions.
5.  boot normally

Using Ghost, if you were to have a hard drive failure, you would:
1.  replace the drive
2.  boot from the provided/created cd/floppy
3.  use the software to write image from external storage to new drive
4.  boot normally

However, if you have dissimilar hardware this option may or may not
work for you.  Windows has the ability to to pick up new hardware and
install the correct drivers, but I have not found this to be entirley
reliable.

What you could do is back everything up onto CD-R, if you go into My
Computer and you find your way to Program Files, you can just send to
your CD drive and than copy the files onto the CD.
So if your hard drive ever does crash, you can go in there and it will
have the setup for each program on a new computer.  All your documents
and all of your programs will be saved.

You can save time of reinstalling all the programs and configuring the computer
again by using a shareware product named StepUp available in this Link

http://www.cellarstone.com/stepup.htm