Taking care of your valuable data!
Now I know this has been said many times, but how often do we listen or take action? Usually 'not until something has happened' is the basic answer to the question.
We store on the PC Hard Drives data that we have compiled, whether it be word processing documents, spreadsheet data from bank accounts or wherever, digital photos etc., and the list goes on. Do we back it up though, in case of accidents, breakdowns or whatever? I would guess the general answer is 'no', but it's quite simple to do in this day and age.
The thinking today is to back your data up to a (re-)writeable CD or even DVD (which can hold up to 4.7Gb), or even dual layer DVD's, holding up to 8.5Gb. For the cost of the media and the actual DVD writer, it's a small price to pay for peace of mind. A re-writeable DVD can be bought for less than 50p and a DVD writer for as little as £20 or so.
An even better method that is now freely available and at a reasonable cost is the external USB Hard Disk Drive (HDD). These can be bought for as little as £60 or less for a 200Gb or so which is a small price to pay when one looks at the value of your photos for instance!
Most newer desktop PC's, those bought within the last couple of years, will have a DVD writer built in, but if yours hasn't then it's quite probably going to be relatively easy to add one. If you're using a laptop, then that's an ideal case for adding an external USB HDD. All modern laptops have a USB port but older ones might need an additionall USB port PC Card, also known as a PCMCIA card which shouldn't be too expensive.
The advantage of an external HDD these days is that with the larger on board HDDs you will probably have a lot of data to back up - photos aren't small - and this could mean writing to a fair number of CD's or DVD's!
Once you've backed your data to the HDD then you can unplug the drive and put it safely away, storing it in another room altogether if you so choose.
Areas for backing up!
My personal disk setup choice varies on whether you have a desktop or a laptop. With a laptop you do not have the internal space to add an additional Hard Disk Drive (HDD) that you have with a desktop and so we'll come to that one in a bit.
Desktop
What I tend to advocate, and practice, is at least two drive letters, C & D,
and preferably with an E and lately an F too.
On the C drive we have the system files, Windows, Program Files, and other associated system settings files which are basically all files created by the system for the system and ones you have NOT created.
On the D drive, in a subdirectory My Documents, (which may be in further sub-directories, depending on the operating system in use) is all the DATA you have created, be they documents, spreadsheets, photos, whatever. This data should be kept clear of your system files.
On the E drive, we can set the system up such that the windows swap file uses this exclusively in order to keep the PC running at it's optimum. I'll go into this at another time, or if you're interested you can contact me for more detailed information on setting this up.
On the F drive you may want to put any files that you share with other users, or backup images whatever.
Now we've talked of these different drive letters, but what do we mean? Well, basically, we have 2 physically independent HDD's and then we partition them into further sections, and each of these then has a letter associated with them. Do NOT use the in-built partitioning software here once you have data on your drives as it usually DESTROYS all data on the partition you process. Use something like Partition Magic which can then change the drive parameters WITHOUT destroying your data. If you're not sure, then ASK before proceeding. It can be too late afterwards!
By keeping the data separate from the system files it makes recovery easier in the event of a failure somewhere along the line. Also, having 2 HDDs makes life easier too!
The way I use my system is to have my system files on my one HDD, C; my data files on the second HDD, D, and then I keep what's known as a Ghost image of my system disk, C, in a sub-directory on my D drive, and a copy of my (important) data files in a partition on the first drive, E.
I tend to use Ghost, a proprietary piece of software, that will make an exact image of my C drive at a specific instant in time (and that's important to remember here) and that I create directly to the second drive. This way if I have a failure of a hard drive I know I have something that will get me back up and running within a very short period of time, usually within say half an hour, whereas if I have to rebuild my drive from all the CD's and then re-set all the parameters etc as previously and no doubt then add all the upgrades and security patches (thank you Microsoft!), it could take me days! And that's being realistic!
There are other ways and pieces of software, but I tend to write my experiences and from where I'm comfortable. For instance, that the latest version of Ghost will write directly to CD & DVD (if you have the hardware) and a USB port, but for convenience etc., I prefer the twin drive and ghost boot disk approach. If anyone would like to take this further, then please contact me for further information. Using twin drives means you have the restoration image to hand anyway, and if you really want a remote image as a further backup you can still do that. Creating an image to a second HDD is also quicker than to CD or DVD! If you have a home or SOHO network, keep a copy of the image on another PC for additional peace of mind if you wish. You'll need a bootable FDD or Bootable CD/DVD to use the restoration software in th eevent of a total crash!
'Data' can be just copied over to a duplicate 'My Document' structure on the external HDD and/or copied to CD or DVD, which you might want to do with your Digital Photos anyway. The reasons for the latter can be seen if you view another of the Hints & Tips sheets on Digital Photos! By saving photos to DVD you may be able to view them on your TV via your DVD player, but just check the format first. Later DVD's can usually play jpg format files so just ensure the images on the DVD are jpg's if you want to play them on the TV.
Laptops
Now laptops are a 'little more bovver than a hovver' here as you can ususally only fit one internal HDD due to space limitations, but the drive
should be partitioned into two, a C & D drive, saving
your data to the My Documents directory on D drive as in the desktop section
above.
To save the system disk image, again use Ghost, Drive Image or similar software to create this to an external USB HDD purchased for backups.
To save your data when using a system with only one HDD, copy it all to an external HDD for total safety and peace of mind. After all, it's highly unlikely that two HDD's would fail at the same time, unless of course you went and deleted it or formatted the drive!! Some common sense is essential whatever system you use!
Whatever you decide to do, or however you decide to structure your setup, you need to religiously stick to a routine of backing up your files or if anything happens it's a pain rebuilding your system files and in cases of lost data, that can be even worse, as photos are irreplaceable!
Also, remember to back up your email contact list and messages independently of the system image to say your data area, because this is constantly changing whereas your system backup file is a snap shot at that one time, and then if you recover your system image you won't have the latest email info in there! Again, this is another Hint & Tips sheet!
Remember, system files can be rebuilt whereas personal data is lost, and that's possibly forever, except for your personal memory!
Closing comments
I'm sorry if this has been long, or not long enough, but if you feel I can clarify it in any way, be it using diagrams or any other way, please feel free to contact me and I'll do my utmost to sort it to your satisfaction as I know how important this subject of data backup an recovery is, as I've seen how it affects users, and how they blame and abuse the support staff when it all goes wrong! The easier and painless we can make it, albeit with your own input, the better!
This article has been updated to reflect the technology advancement of external USB HDD's which have become more commonplace now as the prices have dropped, and sizes of internal HDD's on PC's and Laptops have increased.
Remember, Your data is important and it's difficult to put a value on the contents, but I guess it'll be more than the cost of the support hardware and software required to achieve total safety!
