little update:
After cussing the a-hole who created the garbage that wormed it's way into my PC, getting the new drive setup and getting everything (i think) re-installed I finally got back to more or less normal.
Once I had all 7bazillion windows updates & all the protection software updated, I gave the Acronis backup software a shot.
After formatting my infected drive (now living in an external case) & deleting the partition, re-formatting & re-creating a new partition, I ran the software to "clone" my freshly installed drive. Took a couple hours to do it's thing, had to reboot, but it seemed to go as planned.
I cloned a 750gb drive onto a 500gb drive although only about 45gb was filled with the OS & programs.
Today, I pulled my 750gb drive from the PC & plugged in the 500gb "clone". It booted right up and everything was there just like I had the 750gb drive setup.
I'll have to give that software a big thumbs up.
Also, when I was organizing my software cd's I came across a pile of setup discs that came with other hard drives I've bought over the years (actual retail kits, not bare drives) and found a bunch that had similar drive cloning features. Wish I had gone through my stash of cd's before I bought the other software, but it was cheap enough & it worked, so I can't complain. I also found a WD utility on western digital's website that's a free version that does a similar function.
As soon as I find another sata drive on sale, I'm going to make a clone of my clone to make sure I always have a clean install to go to.
If you have a lot of software installed or a ton of updates (like we all do) I'd highly recommend cloning your drive to save yourself all the hassle of starting over from scratch.