Would not disagree......however, I'd get a copy of the HDD image regardless.
Macrium is free.....runs a full image in about 30-45 minutes......of course per the comments above.....have to have a place to put it.
Yeah, that's the issue, unfortunately, space.
I have my 80gb IDE spare, and I actually do have an older 40gb IDE spare, both work fine, but if I am doing a full format, I'll be putting my spare 80gb in as her main drive so I can't use that to backup an image, and the 40gb is SLIGHTLY too small to do an image backup to (the drive in the machine atm is a 120gb, and about 52gbs of it is filled, so the 40gb would be too small...).
Also, the 40gb is currently storing a backup of somebody's data whose computer I repaired the other day - they asked that I keep it for now in case something else on their computer turns out to be the problem, so I can't use it regardless! (Coincidentally, that laptop became fouled up almost in the exact same fashion as my mom's machine....uninstalled 3 programs just after an Avast program update and it stopped booting as well, also stopping at aswRvrt.sys!!!) We couldn't get that machine to boot into Windows AT ALL though, so I ended up just formatting it...
Running the extended S.M.A.R.T. scan on mom's drive now from the BIOS...said it would take about 50-60 mins, so I'll report back when it's done. Having a feeling I may be formatting her machine tomorrow on my day off though, but at least I have her data now! I'll see if Essexboy has any more ideas...