Tech

“Why should you be afraid?”, I can hear you ask.

I just got an email from my friend Miche who said,

“My laptop is sick at the hospital. Hard Drive failure. Am praying data can be retrieved.”

Her exact words.

Ohhhh : tremors of fear running up and down my spine!

Why?

Because … and I have to be honest … I haven’t *backed up* my laptop for ages!

Oh I can hear your derisive laughter, your looks of scorn … I can feel your disbelief.

Me - of all people - admitting this. My friends call me “TechieGirl”!

Well, the best part of my friend’s scary dilemma is that it’s forcing me into action!

I’m dusting off the cd burner and plugging into the power, plugging it into the USB slot - now how *hard* was that? I’ve got a stack of blank cds gathering dust on my desk … why not use them?

Hmm … why not do a *big* backup on the first of each month, and a *mini* backup every Monday [or Tuesday or Friday … whatever works best for you]?

::::: Plan it! :::::

Viruses, software failures, power failures, human errors, hard drive failures are only a few examples of what could destroy the data on a hard drive, including all documents, pictures, emails and other files!

Most home computer users don’t need an expensive backup solution; as they only need to burn the folders with important documents and pictures to a CD-RW from time to time; this ensuring that in case of a disaster they can easily get them back. Togeder with documents and pictures, it’s a critical operation to save the emails, attachments, address book and other important data from within the email client; otherwise in case of a computer problem the user will find himself in the impossibility to get them back, and this can be a really unwanted situation especially for webmasters or people who rely on their emails. Unfortunately many people actually start to do backup copies only after they lose data.

In the first part of this article series, I talked about the three main threats to the data on your computer. I talked about the need for a data backup solution that protects your data properly. In this article, I’ll outline the most common data backup solution options available to you.

A simple data backup solution

A simple way to backup your data is to save everything to CD. By burning your vital information to a CD-ROM, you can have another copy of your data if something goes wrong with your computer. Burning your data to a CD-ROM will provide rudimentary data backup protection. There are some problems with this approach however.

Burning your files regularly to CD requires human intervention and effort. It isn’t automatic. You have to take time out of your schedule to do it. People get busy, things happen and before you know it, you haven’t done a data backup in over a month then BAM! Your data is lost.

Oh the perils of collecting those precious photos on your PC for years, only to have your hard drive crash one day, and not have made a SINGLE BACKUP COPY of any of your priceless pictures. Well, now is the time to backup your hard drive. A few simple steps will set you on your way?so let’s not think about it anymore: let’s DO it.

There are several ways you can backup your PC data.

1.) CD’s and DVD’s are one of the simplest ways to go. It’s a very simple process to pop in a CD-ROM and burn a copy of your important information, but there’s a catch: you’ll have to be disciplined enough to do this on a regular basis. You’ll also have to burn new CD’s weekly in order to keep up with the new information you’ve just stored on your PC for the past week and this can get rather expensive as you go out to buy new CD-ROMS every month. So there are other solutions?

Is a data backup solution part of your computer plans? Do you have a way to protect yourself if something goes wrong with your computer or data? Computers are a useful part of our lives but we don’t always protect ourselves from their loss be it fire, theft or hardware failure.

We often don’t consider how fragile our computer data really is. Do you keep sensitive information on your computer that you would be upset if you lost it? Not sure? Consider this. If I told you that I was going to format your hard drive right now and you will lose all of the information on your computer, would you be ready? Or would you need to get a few files first… If you are in the second group, chances are you don’t have a proper data backup solution in place to help you handle disasters.

What happens if your computers are stolen?

The following scenario’s have probably been repeated thousands of times, on computer systems of all kinds and sizes, operated by all levels of users from complete novice, to expert user.

· You log on and your computer will not boot to your operating system.

· You have installed some piece of new hardware, or some new software, your computer cannot find your operating system.

In more than 20 years of using personal computers, I have experienced all kinds of computer/operator failures. Some were caused by equipment failure, others by me doing something dumb. It really makes no difference, when your computer does not work, the only thing that matters is getting it up and running, and saving as much data as possible

All mechanical devices, will at some point fail, there is no timetable that tells you exactly when they will fail, however it is usually when you can least afford the time lost or the cost of repair, or of course immediately after the warranty has expired. Current computer hard drives are very reliable, they work for hours on end and keep right on ticking, they are however partially mechanical, as such they are subject to unannounced failure. They could fail in 5 minutes, or in 5 years or even longer.

There is a common problem that happens with lot of computer users. This problem is the loss of a password. It happens to many of us due to the enormous number of application we use.

Also, it can happen due to other reasons, like forgetting to keep the passwords in a safe place, or failing to update your password list after a change was made to it.

In this case, when you need to recall the password, you will be surprised to find out, that your password list doesn’t help you since you forgot to update your record.

Without a doubt, losing access to your computer is disastrous and is near impossible to regain, if you can’t recall your password.

You will lose all your saved work, applications, programs, and whatever you have saved on your computer. You will have to go through a new installation, which is time consuming.

This is assuming you still can locate your original CD-ROM and registration key.

The best solution to this big problem is to prevent it if you can. You may not be able to prevent this problem from happening, that is the loss of access to your Windows XP computer.

WinUndelete
http://www.deprice.com/winundelete.htm

WinUndelete? is an easy to use undelete software utility to recover deleted files from hard drives, floppy disks, zip drives, USB external flash drives, digital camera cards, and more. Its unique and exclusive SmartScan technology completes those impossible recovery tasks that other software cannot touch - SmartScan quickly locates and restores deleted files. WinUndelete works with Microsoft Windows 95, 98, ME, NT, 2000, XP, 2003 and can recover data from both FAT and NTFS file systems.

Filerecovery Professional
http://www.deprice.com/filerecoveryprofessional.htm

FILERECOVERY Professional can detect drives even if they are not visible in explorer. The full directory structure of the drive is displayed (Even on NTFS Drives where it is recoverable) and the built in search feature makes finding files much easier. The Recovery Wizard allows even novice users to successfully recover lost data. Supports Hard Drives, RAIDS, Most Removable Media, SmartMedia, CompactFlash, Memory Sticks and Micro Drives.

BadCopy Pro
http://www.deprice.com/badcopypro.htm

BadCopy Pro is a leading data recovery software for floppy disks, CD-ROMs, CD-R/Ws, digital media, zip disks, and other storage media. BadCopy Pro can effectively recover and rescue corrupted or lost data from damaged, unreadable, or defective disks. The software supports all kinds of damage situations and all file types.

Vision Backup
http://www.deprice.com/visionbackupenterprise.htm

Vision Backup 10 Enterprise is an advanced and easy-to-use backup solution, designed for scheduled backup of your mission critical data. Supported media’s include CD-R/CD-RW/DVD-R/DVD-RW, FTP/SFTP/FTPS, Tape, Flash Devices and USB Hard Drives. Vision Backup gives you the ability to backup all your valuable data on your entire network. Increase Vision Backup’s functionality by adding FREE plug-ins such as Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft Outlook Express, Directories and Files, and My Desktop and Files.

SmartSync Pro
http://www.deprice.com/smartsyncpro.htm

SmartSync Pro is a universal tool to backup and synchronize your important data to the same drive, different drive, removable ZIP/JAZZ drive, network volume or even remote computer. To make the application automatically copy new and modified files to some destination, you just need to setup the profile using easy to use wizard just once. The profile defines what, where and when to copy. Obsolete files will be also removed when they are not needed. If source data are destroyed or lost, they can be recovered with one mouse click.

Genie Backup Manager
http://www.deprice.com/geniebackupmanagerprofessional.htm

“We apologize for the inconvenience, but Windows could not be accessed or located.”

It happens to the best of us. A complete operating system failure. One day you might turn on your p.c. and that dreadful message is on your screen as plain as day. You don’t know what you could have possibly done, as your computer was working fine just a little while ago.

Panic is usually the first thing to set in. Something like an operating system failure can literally put home business owners out of business indefinitely. The cost and time involved in trying to repair a p.c. and the months or even years of lost information is overwhelming and frightening to think about.

This doesn’t have to happen to you if you are prepared.

When you think about it, our businesses are at the mercy of technology. The technology is only as good as long as it’s working properly. What a wonderful world we would live in if technology were flawless.

The reality is that systems fail. Computers are machines and machines sometimes break down. It doesn’t get any simpler that than. We have no other choice than to be prepared for when those times come, especially IF we want to make sure our home business suffers very little down time.