It's always April 1st somewhere in the universe but never the less an Ubuntu (other flavours of Linux are available) start up disc and/or USB stick is a really handy thing to have around the house of anyone with a computer.

You can use it to sweep viruses, you can use it to retrieve data or restore a partition and other than the cost of the USB stick or disc it's better than kosher.

With power outages the drive killer isn't always the outage but surges when the power is restored so good surge protection is also a plus.