Backing Up Your Hard Drive

Fact... Computers crash causing loss of data and hard drives fail. When you have a new computer, it's not a big deal if it crashes. You can simply reload the original software and you're back up and running. If you've had your computer for a while, it's likely that you have loaded all sorts of personal files and your favorite software. You've loaded all of the software for all of your peripherals and you generally have your computer just as you want it. If you load all of this stuff over a period of months, it may not seem like much but if you have to restore a computer to where it was before a bad crash or drive failure, the task will seem enormous (especially if it has to be done in a matter of days). If you want to protect yourself, you need to burn an 'image' of your hard drive. The image will be an exact copy of your drive. It's not only the OS but it's also all of the software and files that were on the hard drive partition when you produced the image (nothing installed/saved/loaded after the image was produced will be restored).
There are a couple of popular programs that can perform this task. First is Norton's Ghost. The second is True Image from Acronis. I prefer True Image by a large margin but many people swear by Ghost. Both work with most systems. Be aware that the amount that you backup will have to be written somewhere. if you have a drive partitioned, it's OK to write the image to the other partition (you can't write to the partition that you're backing up). The problem with writing to the same drive is that you don't have a copy if the drive fails. If you have a second drive (even an old slow drive), you can write to the second drive and have a bit better security against a failed drive. with both software packages, you also have options on the size of the files you want to write. If the backup file is going to be 3GB, I would recommend that you write it to multiple files that were 700MB in size. That way you could burn the individual backup files to individual CDs. If you're going to burn it to DVD, the file size limit is about 4.2GB (it's less than the rated 4.7GB).
In the following screen cap, you can see that there are 6 files with the extension of .TIB. These are the True Image backup files for the 'C' partition of this drive. These were set to a size that would fit on a CD. They register as more than 700MB but they will fit on the CD fine (remember the difference in binary and decimal values).

Below is the first window you see when you start True Image. You want to create an image. Double-clicking on 'create image' will get us to the next step.

This is self explanatory.

Here, it wants to know what we want backed up. All we want to backup is the C partition. As you can see, that's the only thing checked.

Below, we have to select the drive in which we want to store the image. I chose drive E and entered the name 'backupfortutorial' and clicked NEXT.

The following box allows us to make a new image or to append a previous. It seems to take just as long to append an image so I always create a new image.

Here we have a choice as to the size of the output files. I typically choose the 700MB size so I can burn them to CD. If you're writing the image file to another hard drive and don't intend to move the files onto optical media (CD/DVD...), there is no reason to break up the files.

Below, we choose the compression level, Normal works fine. Maximum compression will work more slowly but will take less storage space.

If desired, you can enter a password to protect the archive. I never do but the choice is up to you.

Here we can enter comments. If you are producing backup files from many different computers, it's a good idea to enter any information you may need about the computer, the owner of the computer, the date and any other information that you think may be useful in the future. Remember that it may be a long time before you'll need the files. It's unlikely that you'll remember everything when the time comes to use the backup files.

This is self-explanatory. Click 'proceed' to start the backup process.

This is the backup in progress.

This shows that the backup process has completed. Click OK to close the dialog box and close the main window of True Image to exit the program. It don't get much easier than that.

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File Backup The previous section covered the backup of the operating system partition on a hard drive. This section is likely more important, especially if you've produced material (text, web site, graphics, photos...) that would be devastating if lost. At ANY time, your hard drive could fail. This is a VERY common problem and I see it often. If you have the budget for it, you can have the data recovered from a hard drive but it often cost $1000+. To better protect your material, you should back up the important files regularly. I'd recommend that you back up the files at least once a month. Backing up more often is better. If you're working on a large project that has taken a month to produce and the hard drive fails, you will have to reproduce all of that material if it's not securely backed up. If the important files are of a vacation or of children growing up, the photos can never be reproduced. I back up to both hard drives and to optical discs (CDs/DVDs).
Since it's common for computers to be stolen (particularly, laptop computers), having the files on an external hard drive or on optical discs can be important. If the files are important and sensitive, the backups can be stored in a safe deposit box (at a bank). This will not only prevent others from having access to them but will protect you in case of fire.
Backup Software:
There are many choices if you want the material backed up automatically. For those who own/use Nero, the Nero Back it Up software works well. It will back up files as often as you like and can back it up in several ways. One way is to overwrite the last backup. This is good for most files but can cause loss of material if the main file becomes corrupted. Then the backup file will be useless as well. You can also tell it to make a new backup of all changed files. This can use a lot of hard drive space but is safer. Even if you use this software, it's important that you produce additional backups for the most important files. When backing up on optical discs, it's important that you use good quality recordable media (discs). I recommend either Taiyo Yuden or Verbatim. If you use poor quality media, the files may become unreadable. When making the backups to optical discs, I'd recommend using the original files so that you have the very latest version. Don't discard the previous optical backup files. Sometimes a file will become corrupted but it's not a commonly used file and isn't noticed for quite a while. Having as many backups as possible increases the chances of finding a version that was saved before it became corrupted.
Other Backup Methods:
There one way to quickly/simply backup a file... Email it to yourself. Of course, this only works with web-based email. Virtually anyone can get a web based email account for free. This is only practical for text based files due to generally slow upload speeds but if you've spent 10, 20, 100 hours producing a document, you don't want to risk losing it. Even those who are intimidated by new software can use this method.
Another way to backup files is via online storage. This is becoming a more viable option now that broadband allows faster upload of files. Mozy is one option. Originally, their prices made it difficult to justify using their service but as of mid 2010, the cost is extremely reasonable for their MozyHome plan. For those who need 2GB or less of storage, their service is free. I don't need it but I tried the free service and it was relatively simple. Register with them, download their software, select the files and upload them. When you need to download your files (either for backup or to download to another computer), you select the files, tell them where you want to store then and start the transfer.
Protecting Sensitive Data:
If you are concerned that you may have to return a defective drive with sensitive data on it, use a RAID drive configuration. Any RAID configuration other than a RAID 1 will split the data across several drives so that no individual drive will have usable data. In any RAID setup other than RAID 1, if one drive fails, the data on it is useless without the other drive(s). You can return any drive in the RAID array for replacement without worrying that someone could recover the data. If data security is important, a 0+1 may be a good choice because it protects data as above but it also allows a drive to fail without losing data.