There may come a day when we go in for an annual recording, against the possibility of traumatic mishap. Based on your selected frequency of making "back-ups," you may lose up to an entire year of your life.
I think this has been used as a Science Fiction plot element. Discovering that he has been "re-instated," the protagonist sets out to discover who "had it in for him" and caused his traumatic mishap.
That's what I mean by preparation. If you consider a person who has been beheaded, his body cremated, and the ashes dispersed in the ocean, it would be "difficult" to reconstruct that person without a record of some kind.
Contrast that with someone who has been executed by crucifixion. That individual should be relatively easy to "resurrect" through nanotechnological repair. I think that's what you mean.
"... if we we not limited to the Third Rock from Sol..."
That little rock would tend to get very, very crowded if the only way off was an accident. There'd probably be a few "accident specialists" available for hire, too.
Dan Simmons. Hyperion. A cybrid clone of John Keats.
Interestingly enough, the same book had the plot device of a semi-biological "cruciform" that would revive an individual if they died. However, there was no way to take one off once it was on and there was the problem of duplicative fade as well.
Having some kind of "error correction and control" code would be a good idea...
False Memory Syndrome by design?