Case of the failed backups

Working with computer problems can involve a certain amount of detective work in order to understand what event(s) contributed to the present fault the client so desperately needs fixed. Clients when questioned will often state that no new software has been installed of late or that no young children have been using the computer. However from experience there is almost always some involvement by the user or others in the present state of affairs.

Perhaps a program has been downloaded from the Internet and maybe it did not install properly or a virus has be activated on the computer but removed by an AntiVirus program however leaving remnants behind. Someone bought home from work an update to a program but something went wrong during the upgrade etc. The list goes on but normally there is a reason.

Unless I have worked on the computer in very recent times I insist on spending some time checking the basics to ensure that there is no underlying problems causing the present problem. This is equivalent to a Service Technician checking the power supply in the TV or VCR to ensure the correct voltages are present before burying himself into the main problem only to later discover that the problem was being caused by incorrect supply voltages. Many years ago I remember reading an article in an Electronics magazine where the technician spent over an hour on a portable Transistor Radio looking for a distorted audio problem only to eventually discover that the batteries were almost flat.

A general check over the computer involves nothing special and is something every user should do on a regular basis. First using Windows Explorer I remove all the temporary files from the C:\Windows\Temp folder. You can normally remove all the files from this folder as they consist mainly of leftovers from software installations, e-mail attachments you have opened from Outlook Express (the originals are still within Outlook Express unless you have deleted the e-mail) and other leftovers from printer problems and poorly written software. The record for the most files I have found in this folder currently stands at 1468 files and all of them consume Hard Drive space. This in itself may not be a problem today with large Hard Drives however I have found that for the most reliable use of any CD Writer an empty C:\Windows\Temp folder works every time.

The next thing to check is the size of the Internet Explorer "Temporary Internet files" setting. I recommend you set this within the region of 20 to 30 MB rather than the default which with today's huge Hard Disk Drives is in the region of 500MB plus. Reducing the number of files stored by Internet Explorer in my experience improves the performance of what is a critical component of Windows. You can access this setting through Tools / Internet Options / General /Temporary Internet Files / Settings. At this point I normally use the "Delete Files" option so that when I later do a virus check and use Scandisk there will be a few thousand less files to be scanned.

Now a quick check with the SCANDISK utility program (located normally within the system tools folder on the start menu). There is no need to use other than the "Standard" setting unless you suspect a failing Hard Disk Drive. I also prefer not to use the "Automatically Fix Errors" setting as I want to observe any faults and correct them myself. Scandisk is a program which checks the integrity of the physical location of files on the Hard Disk Drive and compares them with the FAT (File allocation Table). You can consider the FAT to be a database. Any access to all your files is controlled by the FAT so its importance cannot but underestimated. So Important is its function that it actually creates and maintains a duplicate copy in case of corruption. Lost parts of files, duplicates, and other problems are easily corrected with this program. Another result I look for is the "Scandisk Results" which reports on disk space left and most importantly any Bad Sectors. Bad Sectors are a very sure sign that the Hard Disk Drive is failing and needs urgent replacement.

A restart of the computer allows me to check any error messages either present from the BIOS, in DOS prior to Windows loading (only in Windows versions prior to ME) and certainly any errors when Windows loads. Many users will then admit that the present problem seemed to occur when the "unrelated" error message appeared in Windows. Most times though things ARE related. It is pointless trying to locate the problem for which I was called to repair on the Computer without diagnosing error messages and correcting them. Many errors stem from viruses, software that was uninstalled incorrectly, wrong versions of DLL's caused by poorly written software installation programs. Much time can be devoted to correcting these errors. Old entries in the "Autoexec.bat and Config.sys files are removed and in fact most times these files are removed from the computer as they are no longer necessary for the correct operation of Windows on the majority of Computers.

Unless the client has maintained an up to date Virus scanner I will now do a full scan of the computer using the latest release of signature files thereby ensuring I am scanning with the most up to date information. A computer connected to the Internet without a Virus Scanner is a disaster waiting to happen and I'm quite forceful in installing a licensed copy of my preferred Anti Virus product (VET) and charging the client for it. They will thank me when they eventually get hit with a virus.

Finally a check of some of the programs loading unnecessarily at start up and residing in the system tray adjacent to the clock. Every Icon here represents a program that is running and consuming valuable system resources. Many programs do not need to be started when Windows starts and in the case of some popular software actually only load so as to send data to their home site when the computer is connected to the Internet. Every program has its own way of configuration however it is normally possible to alter it's setup so as to stop it loading at start up.

Because of the time involved and because it does not contribute to computer problems I normally would not do a Defrag of the Hard Disk drive. The Defragment program is normally located within the system tools folder on the start menu and I would perhaps show the client how to use this later. With constant use files (and parts of files) become scattered all over the Hard Disk Drive making access times to open files slower. The Defragmenter program rearranges these files so as they are contiguous making for faster operation of the computer.

A recent visit to a new client for what turned out to be a routine Internet configuration problem was a real surprise for them. When performing the steps discussed earlier prior to focussing on their Internet problem I discovered what appeared to be a number of backup files on the second partition of their Hard Drive. These backup files appeared to have been created by an older program suited only for Windows 3.1 possibly obtained many years ago. My client had been faithfully using this program for a number of years in the belief that all their critical files were fully backed up.

This program was not capable of Windows 95/98 long files names and spaces and therefore all file names and folders (directories in the programs terms) were corrupted back to the old 8 x 3 file name structure. Worse still when a long file name is read in the old format it must be shortened to the first 6 characters followed by the ~ then the first available number. For example a file name such as my first letter.doc becomes myfirs~1.doc and my first report.doc becomes myfirs~2.doc and so on. This is not only very confusing when you later recover these files but in many cases the correct name is difficult to guess.

When I worked through with the client which actual files that were being backed up they were horrified to discover that none of their critical customer tracking data nor much of their other valuable information was actually being copied to the back up folder on the other hard Drive partition. Many computer users fail to appreciate that a backup is the most important maintenance procedure they should perform on a daily or at worst on a weekly basis. In this case not only was my client failing to have a second copy of their data but also what they did have was stored on a second partition of the sole Hard Drive. Should this Hard Drive fail then they would have no backup. Backup data needs to stored on a removable medium such as a ZIP Drive or with some of the larger files used by some people these days it is becoming more common to use a second removable Hard Drive. What is important however is that the backup storage media is located away from the computer so that in the case of a theft or fire the data is safely stored in a location not so affected.

Many years ago when Hard Drives were small (and therefore programs were also) and most computer users were using MS DOS or maybe Windows 3.1 it was not uncommon to backup the whole Hard Drive. In my opinion these days this is no longer necessary nor practical as a restoration of the whole hard drive may not provide the correct result to repair the problem and the sheer volume of information requires Gigabytes rather than Megabyte of storage. Rather it is more practical to identify your valuable data and copy that to your chosen removable media. Together with my client we identified the major data that was critical to their small business and I installed a Iomega 100MB Internal ZIP Drive and supplied them with 2 100MB ZIP diskettes (to be alternated between each backup). The only decision now was what software to use for the backup procedure and how to automate it so that it was a simple function to be performed on a regular basis.

The Iomega ZIP drive is supplied with backup software and all versions of the Windows Operating System include a backup program. In my view for small business and home use it is far more satisfactory to simply use a "Batch File" to copy the data directly to the backup media rather than engage a specialised program. Another point which should be noted is that if you backup data using a particular version of a backup software then the same version many times needs to be used for the recovery. For some users who format their Hard Drive and then try to recover the data may discover that the version they used to backup is no longer able to open the archive and recover their data.

Batch files although harking back to the old DOS days will still work very well within Windows. They allow the user to see what is going on and can provide a positive confirmation that all data has been copied to the removable media. Should the user wish to recover some data from a backup they can easily locate it directly instead of having to use the backup software to locate, open the compressed archive and recover the data. I propose at some later date to discuss with practical examples and locations of the critical files how to use batch files to backup data on your home computer.

Finally some suggestions for data to be included in backups would have to include the following:

E-Mail Address Book for Outlook Express or Netscape
E-Mail Messages from Outlook Express or Netscape
Favourites for Web or Bookmarks for Netscape
Outlook (Office product) data file
Data file(s) for your accounting program
Data files(s) for your PIM program
FAX data if using faxing from computer
Word Processing, Spreadsheets, Database etc
Configuration files such as Custom dictionaries etc
Scanned Image files