When your hard-drive DIES! Are you protected?

Did you know? ALL hard-drives eventually fail. Typical HD life is between 2 and 8 years. Five years is about the normal. When your HD dies – EVERYTHING that you have not backed up is GONE! Unless you tested backups – they may fail.

You did know already … So, you took action. You bought an external USB backup drive from one of the major companies, along with the free backup software (examples on next several pages). You installed the drive, installed the backup software (and set it to go). Now – you’re good to go! ????????

Maxtor Seagate Western Digital

Not quite so fast!!!!! Did you know that NONE of the products listed include backup software that COMPLETELY protect you? You see – they all can be configured to backup your documents, pictures, etc. That is much better than nothing – your son’s wedding pictures, the trip to Europe, your tax records – safe – BUT -----------

Install a New Hard Drive If you install a new hard drive – just HOW do you get WINDOWS and the PROGRAMS back????? The drive won’t have the hidden partition that the manufacturer uses to restore original software. Do you have CDs or DVDs and license keys for ALL your programs? (I thought not)

New Computer The old computer was like the ol’ gray mare – let’s buy a new one. Are we good-to-go now???? Well, we have a new Windows (gee, don’t look much like our old Windows with all the changes we made over the years.) Where’s all those extra programs that we USED to use???? Can we even find all those programs???

Let’s look at the free software The examples happen to come from a Seagate 750G FreeAgent Pro drive. However, all these companies have similar functionality (and similar limitations) in the free software for backup. Their backup software is designed to backup documents, pictures, etc. – NOT the operating system and programs.

First screen

Second screen

Choose simple backup

Choose custom backup

Expand the choices

The delete backups screen

Custom – next step

Custom – next screen

Custom – last screen

Sorry – incomplete! The only choices were different parts of what was detected as user data. While user data is certainly very important, it is incomlete. Do you want to spend days installing Windows and all the various pieces of software that you use, then getting the individual preferences back to your comfort level? (And then restore your data files).

What do we need First off – remember TANSTAAFL (Robert Heinlen quote – “there ain’t no such thing as a free lunch.” We need a program that will backup EVERYTHING including Windows, all the applications, all the preferences, all the links, all the icons, all the features that your computing uses.

There’s a freebie! And – it’s built right in (XP example, Vista has its own). Hey – I’m Joe Tightwad – I ALWAYS use free programs. Remember the old auto oil commercial – with the mechanic saying: “You can pays me now, or you can pays me more later.”

Windows XP Backup Utility

Using XP Backup Backup isn’t TOO difficult to get right – and it is as dependable as any third party utility. Restore is the problem. First, you have to install Windows XP completely (and you need to have the CD and the key) Then – you have to run the XP Backup program to restore – there are a considerable number of settings that have to be changed from default for the restore to be successful (such as overwriting system files). IF you are a long-term experienced system administrator – no problem!

Windows Vista Backup

Vista restore help screen

Windows Vista backup This program seems to work well in backup mode, I have not tested restore. It is still necessary to install Vista before restore (you need DVD and key). I was not pleased with the way the program would not let me do a complete backup each time, but insisted on doing incremental backups (I could not persuade it that there was no longer an original backup, when it though there should be one).

Third party programs There are a number of workstation oriented (server oriented are $1000 or more) programs. Companies such as Acronis TrueImage 11, PerfectImage 11, and Norton Ghost 14. (current releases in Sept. 2008) I use Acronis – it is modestly priced, simple to use, simple to restore, and I KNOW that it works (ultimate test – cloning to a larger new hard drive on a notebook computer). The above are NOT free programs – tanstaafl – I don’t want to find out the freebie didn’t work when the free backup didn’t work.

Demo of TrueImage 11

Scrolled down

Scrolled again

Backup file name changed

Full backup archive

Incremental backup

Differential backup

Don’t mix types I personally have a strategy of doing small daily backups of documents to a USB thumb drive, and using only complete full backups with Acronis approximately monthly. If you choose to use incremental or differential – do NOT mix them – pick one and stay with it. They are not compatible with each other.

The manual options

Manual options screen

Comments screen

Comments screen filled out with information

The Restore Wizard

Selecting the restore file

Restore to original location

Restore to an alternate location You would use this for a test backup and restore

These were the original files for a test backup.

These are the restored files (in a different location on the workstation’s C: drive)

Things to remember: ALWAYS make a test backup and restore it to a different area of the hard drive. A few directories full of files is sufficient for this purpose, be sure to verify that the restored files are the same as the original. Repeating this process from time to time gives assurance that things still work.

More thoughts: The USB drive does not have to be powered up all the time (unless you automate the backup process completely). If the USB drive is not powered up, it might be a good idea to store it somewhere besides where the computer is located (if there is a fire, flood, etc. backup data in a different location. If the above is especially important, it might be well to have TWO USB drives, and alternate locations between them.

Network Attached Storage If you purchase a NAS drive instead of a USB drive, it gets an IP address on your network, and all of your computers can backup to the same drive (presuming that the drive is large enough – this is one good reason for 1TB hard drives). The USB drive can be used on multiple computers also, but needs to either be shared from one computer or plugged in to each computer one at a time (USB2 or Firewire transfer are faster than most networks (100mb).

Very important! If you purchase Acronis as a download (instead of boxed version), be SURE to create a bootable CD using the program. This bootable CD or DVD is needed to start the computer and locate the backup file on the attached USB drive in order to perform the restore. If you update Acronis, make a NEW boot CD or DVD for the new version each time.

Using the Acronis Bootable CD Some rather surprising things can be done using the Acronis boot CD. Would you like to make a backup of an older Windows 95 or 98 computer? Early Windows did not support USB drives, but you can boot from Acronis CD and image the machine. You can also image a Linux or Intel based Solaris system in this manner. Acronis is sold in server versions – so the following cannot legally be done (although it will work) images can be made of Windows servers also, including NT4, Windows 2000, and Windows 2003.

More features of Acronis 11 The Acronis 11 bootable CD can also be equipped with programs to remove ALL user data from an old computer, or to “scrub” the hard drive so as to remove ALL files of any type. This is useful if you wish to donate or sell the old computer, and wish to be sure your personal information is protected.

Promised LAN Computing, Inc. 4703 Carolina Avenue If the information provided is not sufficient for you to set up backup, you might find professional help to be a boon. CONTACT: Promised LAN Computing, Inc. 4703 Carolina Avenue Trent Woods, NC 28562 (252) 636-0407 jcason@promlan.com http://www.promlancomp.com