Don't fault the program vendors entirely, because Microsoft has made Windows so complicated, with so many loopholes, that no one seems to fully understand the whole thing, not even Microsoft themselves, because when you install Microsoft programs, you are just as likely that other things will quit working. Full System Backups Normally, when you buy your PC, it comes with Windows and a whole bunch of programs already installed. Your configuration has been tested so if there were any conflicts between programs, they were already resolved by the time your PC company put all this stuff on the hard disk. Even though it all works fine now, just wait til you start making changes. You say, "Well I got a recovery CDROM that came with the PC, so I can get everything back if I need to". That's true, however, it will reformat your hard disk and put everything back on it, just the way it came from the factory. Once recovered, you'll still have to install all your other programs that you've installed yourself. And you'll still have to get your data back onto the hard disk from wherever you have it backed up to. You are making backups, aren't you? As you can imagine, trying to recover your hard disk could take a whole day, or perhaps even days, especially if you don't remember all the things you changed on your PC. You'll have to go back and redo those changes again, because of all the customization you've done, like setting your wallpaper to that picture of your grandkids, and setting your Windows colors to snazzy purple. Some of those things perhaps took you days to customize, like your report settings in Family Tree Maker, to get em just the the way you like em. If you've been using your PC for 6 months or more, there's no way you can remember all those changes you made, and then re-apply them after a recovery. And so, if you want to be able to recover your hard disk, and get it back exactly the way it was before the crash, you need to have a way to make what are called "full system backups". A "full system backup" is one that backs up everything on your hard disk, including Windows and your programs, and your data. To most folks, a "full system backup" means that the backup software has started at the front of the hard disk and backed up everything, track by track, byte by byte, all the way to the end of the drive (or however far out you've used your hard disk so far). Backup Software My experience with backup software that runs under Windows, for making "full system backups", is not good. That's because Windows is always using some of it's own system files, and therefore, the backup software cannot truly backup everything. Imagine that... a Windows backup program that cannot back up itself! They don't tell you this in the store, or in the literature, but you'll find out if and when you have to recover your hard disk.
Backing up on the same hard disk... Backing up to a different partition on the same hard disk gives only limited protection. What if the whole hard disk fails? But it may not cost you any extra for hardware, and by backing up to another drive letter on the same hard disk, you can at least recover quickly if all the problem is just a scrambled C: drive. Remember, the C: drive is more likely to get scrambled by Windows than the hard disk actually failing, having a physical problem itself. Under this scenario, using DriveImage to backup to another partition on the same hard disk, since it's so fast and convenient, you could make a backup of everything on your C: drive (provided you have enough space) everytime before you make any major changes to your PC, like installing a new program, or a program upgrade, including upgrades to Windows, Windows drivers, or any other upgrades. This way, if anything goes awry, or you simply don't like the new program, or the changes it made to your system, you can quickly and easily recover back to the way your system looked an hour ago. Yes, it's that fast. On my 200mhz NEC Pentium PC, using DriveImage, I can backup my C: drive, which has 2.6gb of data and programs, to my F: drive on my 2nd hard disk, in about 11 minutes! And so, you've got $70 or so invested so far, just for the DriveImage software. How about taking it to the next level? There are a number of ways you can go, and they depend on your budget, how you use your PC, and how much hassle you can live with. Backing up to a 2nd hard disk If you can only spend $100 more or so, and want minimum hassles, I suggest that you buy a 2nd hard disk, and make your backups to the 2nd hard disk. If you have any space left over on the 2nd hard disk, you can, of course, use that for storage as well. Having a 2nd hard disk is very fast and has a minimum of headache, but what if your whole PC takes a hit, like a lightning strike, a fire, etc. Backing up to Removeable Disks The next level would be to buy a drive with removeable media (removeable disks), like an Iomega Zip drive, or even an Iomega Jaz drive. Since these use removeable disks, you can store them away from your PC for safekeeping, and even keep an extra copy offsite, in case your whole house disappears, for whatever reason, heaven forbid.
Tape Drives
CDR and CDRW CDR drives write once to blank CDR disks, costing about $1 each, with capacity at 650mb per disk. CDRW allow you to re-write data to CDRW disks, costing about $4 each, with capacity of about 529mb. CDR and CDRW drives can be gotten for about $200 or so, and the media is cheap, however, they are slow and can be unreliable. To get the best reliability, you often have to set the speed of these devices down. My experience has been that to write 600mb onto a CDR disk takes about an hour or so, and 500mb to a CDRW disk takes about 3 hours. The CDRW allows you to simply drag n drop files onto it, just like with any other drive, whereas CDR requires to use it's special software to layout and write the data. CDR software is a lot easier these days, but it's not as intuitive as simply copying files (and in Windows, using Explorer, that's not very intuitive anyway). And so, backing up 2.6gb would take 5 blank CDRs costing about $5 total, and about 4.5 hours of time. Backing up to CDRW would require 5 blank CDRW disks, costing about $20 (but you can reuse em, up to about 900 times, they say), and about 15 hours of time. And don't forget that both scenarios require you to babysit the process, switching disks when prompted. I think of CDR and CDRW as being like Zip drives. They're okay for putting selective stuff on them, especially when you want to share it with friends, or use it in other PCs, because every PC these days has a CDROM drive. But beware... CDRW disks normally can't be read by older PCs, and simply replacing the CDROM drive on the older PC probably won't fix it. You probably will have to buy a whole new PC to be able to read CDR and CDRW disks made by you or your friends. CDR disks are more likely to be readable in all PCs than CDRW disks. To read more about CDR and CDRW, visit Andy McFadden's CD FAQs What I Use All told, I have 4 different levels of backup. 1) DriveImage system backup of my C: drive to my F: drive, onto a 2nd hard disk.
3) Simple copying of selective directories onto about 20 various Zip disks. Why 20? I have each Zip disk devoted to specific projects, so a particular Zip disk may contain everything in a directory on my hard disk, plus all sub-directories for that project. 4) CDR... once I get a project to completion, or at least to a plateau, I make an extra copy (just in case) to a CDR disk. I also use CDR to make backup copies of my DOS programs, plus installation programs for various Windows shareware, Windows drivers, and other things that I've downloaded from the Internet, or wherever. And so, if you're just buying a PC, or thinking of buying one, don't forget your backups! Include the extra hardware for backups as part of the overall cost of the PC. Most PCs now come with a CDR/CDRW drive. Forget trying to use it as a CDRW. Instead, at the very least copy your data to CDR disks. The next level would be buying DriveImage software and making image backups of your stuff to CDRs, including your software and Windows, with all your settings. If you could afford it, consider a USB self-powered external Iomega 100mb Zip drive ($60) plus a few Zip disks ($27), to put selected data on them, because they're faster and more reliable than CDRs. Or, if you have lots of data, instead of a Zip drive, consider an external USB hard drive (as of this writing, you can get an 80gb Maxtor drive for about $120). The USB hard drive beats having to keep up with Zip disks. Currently, DriveImage cannot backup to a USB drive, but I have a solution for that. Email me. Into the Future One last consideration... if you were to expire today, could someone else come in and make sense of your data collection? Not only your computer files, but also your paper files, photos, etc. If we put this much work into collecting and organizing all this stuff, we naturally want our work to survive. So think about who will go thru your stuff and how they might preserve it, and then take the data to new media and technologies in the future. (DVD is something that is right around the corner to replace CDROMs, but don't buy just yet, until a standard shakes out). Keeping organized is hard, and even though the PC is a great tool, you're gonna have to spend some of your time keeping your PC data organized, and backed up. One thing that I do when I create a new directory on my hard drive is I create a $readme.txt file (using Notepad or whatever) and in that file I say what the purpose of this directory is. I may go back and update it from time to time also, as conditions change. Sometimes, we may have two or more copies of things on our PC. One might be the final product, the stuff that's been edited and proofread, etc. But along the way, we may have created one or more working directories, where we were experimenting with things, cropping photos, for example. Having good names for your directories and your files, plus the $readme.txt file, can help you to stay organized, and to be able to tell yourself (and perhaps your survivors) why you created this or that on your PC back 2 years ago. For eventually, someone will have to wade thru all this stuff and decide what to keep and what to purge. That's all for now. Time for a nap. Personal Computing shouldn't be this complicated, but it is, I'm afraid.  Summary of Backup Options More Reading on Backups, by CNet.COM, somewhat out-of-date.
 Brian Harney's Web Pages This page updated 4-Jul-2003 (still needs work, though). Tape drive offer added 14-Apr-2004. |
for details, put "Iomega Ditto Max offer" in the subject line, else it may be deleted by my spam filter.