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| How To Backup Your PC |
Page 1 of 2 This article assumes you have completed the entire "Computers 101" group.
You sip your morning coffee as you press the power button on your favorite PC. It begins to boot... then you see "Disk read error" and Windows will not start. You restart... no help. Still, you don't panic because you know that Eric will hook you up. The first thing Eric says is: "You do have your data backed up, right?" Picture this situation or any one of a hundred others that might result in years of hard work and collected materials lost. Ask yourself what you would do if you lost everything on your PC. Even brand new hard drives fail and there is no situation where backups are not critical. You deserve to get that warm-fuzzy feeling when you think about the safety and security of your information. By having a good backup plan, you can remove the stress of wondering what might be lost in the event of fire, theft, hurricane, tornado, sinkhole, meteorites or even a soda spilled on the hard drive. You have other things to worry about, so let's get your stuff backed up. There have been many products sold to provide complete backup solutions, but nothing can replace your own understanding. Never rely on anyone else to do your thinking for you. You may still choose to use a special device or software even after learning how to do it yourself, but you still need to understand what is happening so that you can be sure of what results you will get when a problem happens (and it will). One alternative to doing manual backups of individual files and folders is what we call taking an "image" of the entire drive. This method is complex and requires very special software and system setup, however it is a very complete and reliable way to backup an entire system for extremely fast recovery and is ideal for mission-critical data. The remainder of this article discusses manual file backups. There are many methods to protect your data from hardware failure. The best by far is a "RAID Array" setup to "mirror" two or more drives so that if one fails, the other can keep the system running. This setup only duplicates the data within a single machine, so it cannot replace a true external backup. Here, we discuss backups that save data in ANY event, including theft or any problem that may affect the entire system. The main parts of every good backup plan include organizing your data, formulating a plan, doing the backups and then testing the results. Organization: The key to organization is understanding what data you create and where it is stored. Each program you use will generally create files that you keep in a specific folder within "My Documents" in Windows XP & a folder named for your User account in Windows Vista. Some programs also have configuration settings as well, so you need to find out how that is done for each program. Organizing your data is critical for a smooth running PC and an organized life. Preparing for backups is only one reason among many to keep things tidy. The Plan: Write it down. Make a list of locations that contain your files and how often they need to be backed up. I also use this as a log of when I've done what. Backup: Backup everything that matters to you in a way that allows for easy storage and restoration. Usually, once per month is enough for the average user, but if you run a business or do other frequent work, you may want to backup some things more frequently. Testing: This is one thing that many users overlook. You may think you have what you need, but if you don't test it, you can never be sure. The best way to do a test is with another machine or a blank hard drive. Depending on how you organize and perform your backups, simply reading the backup disks may be enough to be sure. Technically, "backup" just means to make a copy that is stored for safe keeping. So, to backup any file on your system, simply copy it to a safe. Safe in this case means outside of the existing system or even outside the building or local area. Obviously, you will want to copy entire folders and files to maintain the organization, but it's no more complicated then that. The only key is to know exactly what you need and what you don't need. Since the space required to backup the entire system makes the task much more involved, learning what to leave out without missing critical things you want allows you to do frequent and easy backups that work in real life. You may remember that operating systems and installed programs cannot be copied to another system and still work. They must be installed from a reliable source like from the original CDs. On most systems, even taking a full image of the system may not provide a usable copy, so you will likely need those CDs regardless of how you backup. Each situation is different and it's important that you know your system and your own needs. Like anything in your life, you only need to be aware of it's importance. Once you are aware, you can either do it yourself or have someone do it for you. Either way, we are here to help. On the next page, we discuss some actual Backup Methods.
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