I feel your pain Steely ... been there, done that.
I haven't gone full blown back-up like Fez described, but I'm set-up for quick rebuildability. I'm rough on computers and need to re-build every 9-12 months just because I've installed and un-installed so many things.
I have 3 hard drives in my machine (1.3TB total) ... one for my OS and 2 for data and storage. That doesn't even include the 4 USB flash drives I have and one powered USB drive ... My OS drive has a small partition which contains my most recent ghost image. All data/downloads gets stored on one of the other drives. If I fry the OS or want to re-build, I just reflash the ghost image and am back up in 5-10 minutes. I'll have to re-install anything that I installed since the ghost image was made, but odds are I don't really need that software anyways and I just re-install it when I need it.
Bottom line, I trust nothing (including DVDs) and keep 2 copies of everything.