Essential Backups

Everyone who uses a computer has data that is of varying degrees of importance to them stored on the hard Drive. If the data was of no importance then invariably the user would not have saved it at the time. It is obvious common files such as word processor and spreadsheet files are valuable but have you considered many of the other files that go to make up your normal usage of the Computer? Maybe you use an accounting program such as MYOB or Quicken. Where is the backup of those critical accounts data files? Many times the backup file is also just on the hard drive alongside the working file.

This situation is acceptable in the case of a corrupted data file. The backup file may simply be recalled and put into use albeit possibly a few days may have elapsed since and you need to re-enter some recent data. If you have a virus infection or other nasty problem then storing the backup on the hard drive is potentially no backup at all. All back-ups need to be stored on some sort of reliable removable media away from the computer. This media may be in the form of Diskette, ZIP Disk, LS 120 Disk, Removable Hard Drive, Tape Drive or CD-RW.

Some of the data files you need to consider to backup in addition to Word processor, Spreadsheet and Database are:

E-mail Address Book
E-mail Messages files (if you have important messages)
Internet Favourites (IE) or Bookmarks (Netscape)
Custom Dictionaries for your Word processor
Fax Data (if sending and receiving faxes via Computer)
Accounting program data file for each account
Outlook data file (.pst file for all your data in Outlook)

The normal way is use your backup program. Backup programs will save all the files you specify into one backup file, which may span multiple diskettes. This backup file cannot be accessed like a normal file. You must run the backup program to restore your data files.

You must restore the backup files using whichever backup program you used to back it up originally. In Windows 95/98 Click on Start / Programs / Accessories / System Tools / Backup. This backup program will automatically look for a tape drive and generate an error when it does not find one. Don't worry, just continue. Choose the directories or files you wish to backup and start backup. Refer to the documentation or help files for more information.

Where do you put these files? Depending on the size and number of files you can consider various options. Tape Drives used to be the normal procedure for large amounts of data and a few diskettes were sufficient for small amounts. Most users today have more data that can be easily saved onto diskettes. However if you do elect to save a few valuable files to diskette you must be sure that you have purchased a reliable brand. Boxes of 10 diskettes for $2.00 or $3.00 are most certain to let you down when you really do need them. Be prepared to spend up to $10..00 for a box of 10 and a reputable brand.

Today many small business's and the home user use either a ZIP Drive with either 100MB or 250MB disk sizes available. This provides a quick method and the ZIP format is widely used. A competitor in the form of the LS120 drive seems to be no longer available at this time. For very fast backups a nice option is to use an old Hard Drive in a removable caddy. The Hard Drive needs to be removable so that any possibility of Virus or other threat is isolated. The latest option is to use a CD Writer which will allow you to put your valuable data onto a CD-R..

The last option whilst seemingly the ideal can present some problems. Occasionally the CD Writer (unless it is the very latest "buffer underrun proof technology") can fail to successfully write the CD-ROM. Additionally files just copied to the CD-ROM will be "read only" when copied back to the Hard Drive. There are some nice free utilities available on the Internet for changing the "read only" attributes of these files on mass when and if you need to copy them back to the Hard Drive.

My preferred option is the internal ZIP drive for small amounts of data (up to 250MB) and the removal Hard Drive for much larger amounts including maybe scanned photos etc.

Some people, particularly the type you like to test new software may find the Symantec GHOST program of use as then with a suitably sized backup drive you may make an image of your whole hard drive. This is normally not necessary for the majority of users as if data file is damaged or lost on their computer it will be easier to retrieve from a backup than from a GHOST image.