There is a lovely little app called "partimage" that can rescue you from quite a few problems indeed. It is included on many linux distros or can be installed with just a few mouse clicks from the software installer app (in linux).
I use it from a bootable "System Rescue CD" live disc for any OS I use, including various versions of 'doze for the specialized apps that have not yet been ported to linux.
The app "gparted" (gnuparted) allows you to resize, add and delete more partitions, change and format partition filetypes, and check them for errors. Using 'partimage', I save the OS I am using to an image (not vid- or photo- type image) file and copy it to optical disk straight off, then if any problems develop later on I simply reboot and use the live cd and then restore the default system from a previous state, and check the restored partition with gparted.
Reboot, remove the ejected disc to boot from the hard drive, and I am back and up in no time. Absolutely no worries.
And yes, that includes any and all versions of 'doze, from at least Win7 down through '95bOSR2 from personal experience.
We had the same sort of rescue disks. Most of the time we just used the gparted gui to create partitions and create lvms. Sometimes we would just do things old school with FDISK.
For backups we would often just dd partitions raw image or use a boot disk with ghost on it.
Anyhow, I am a fan of the ix. I like macs too. But, as long as windows dominates the desktop environment we will have to deal with its more plentiful security vulnerabilities. Using vms and resetting them from time to time worked for us.