| Protect Yourself Before Your Hard Drive Crashes |
| By: Jim Scotty |
Almost everyone who has used a computer has experienced a hard drive problem at some point. Are you prepared to lose your data? If your hard drive crashes right now, do you have an action plan to follow?
Most people get complacent about protecting the data on their computers. The time to back up your data is before you experience a problem. Don't set yourself up for a disaster if your computer hard drive crashes.
Your data integrity action plan should consist of the following:
1) How often you will back up your data
2) What data you will back up
3) What back up procedure you will use
How often you back up your data can only be determined by how important you feel it is. Answer this question, "If my hard drive crashed right now, would I be alright if I had the data from at least (time) ago?" For some people, a daily backup is required while for others it may be weekly depending on how often you create important data files.
Of course you would want everything but if you could have the data from 1 month, or 6 months ago would that be sufficient? Whatever time is sufficient, mark it on your calendar and set up a reminder on your PC to help you remember. Another idea is to use an automatic backup program where you can set up specific times for the backup program to run.
Should I back up my entire hard drive?
What data you back up depends on how you use your PC. Some of the key directories, if you are using the Windows operating system, are the My Documents, Favorites, Program Files, and Desktop directories.
Remember if you are using multiple profiles on your PC then some of the directories above can be different for each profile and each one would need to be backed up.
You will also want to include your email data. Don't forget to write down the email accounts you have. You should also write down any username and passwords so they are not lost. You should look at every directory to see if it has information that you would need.
Make a list of all the software programs you are using. If you have the physical CDs put them all together in a safe location. Don't forget the CDs for your peripherals like your scanner, digital camera, PDA etc…
Collecting these CDs may remind you of additional data that you need to back up.
If you are running software that you installed from downloaded files, burn them to a CD-R and add it to your collection. If you use a CD-R or DVD-R you can update it as you download and install new applications.
How should I back up my data?
What procedure you use to back up your data can be determined by the amount of data you want to back up. Your data might fit onto a CD or DVD in which case you just need to burn it and you're done.
If it spans multiple DVDs then you might want to consider getting a second hard drive to copy your data onto. If you are not comfortable with adding a second internal hard drive or you are using a laptop then you can purchase an external hard drive to back up your data. An external hard drive that uses USB 2.0 is a very convenient way to back up yoru data. You just have to plug in the drive to the USB port of your computer and you're ready to go.
The information you have on your hard drive could disappear in a flash. If you don't want to spend thousands of dollars to have a data recovery company retrieve what information they can from your hard drive, then take a few minutes right now and create your back up action plan.
If you ever have a data emergency your action plan will be your insurance policy. If you adhere to it, your valuable data will adhere to you!
About the author:
Jim Scotty maintains a website with the latest news updates on data recovery and protection. This article may be reprinted provided that it is reproduced in its entirety and with the hyperlink and author information kept intact.
|
|
| Keywords: back up, hard drive crashes, 'data recovery', up your data, data, action plan, up, hard drive, back, will back up |
|
Former Smashing Pumpkins sue over downloads
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Two former members of the Smashing Pumpkins sued Virgin Records on Thursday, saying the label shut them out of profits after signing a deal with the rock band's frontman Billy Corgan.
Microsoft CEO backs Web spending, "done" with Yahoo
REDMOND, Washington (Reuters) - Chief Executive Steve Ballmer on Thursday defended Microsoft Corp's need to make heavy investments in its Internet businesses but said the company was "done," for now, with pursuing Yahoo Inc.
Britain agrees plan to tackle online music piracy
LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's music and film industries launched a fight back against online piracy on Thursday, persuading the six biggest Internet providers to send warning letters to those suspected of illegal file-sharing.
Microsoft to expand Facebook ad pact: source
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp will announce plans to expand its relationship with online social network Facebook to provide web search and search advertising, a source familiar with the matter said on Thursday.
Brubaker putting "Angel" online
LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - Veteran comic-book artist Ed Brubaker is spearheading an online live-action series.
|
|
BadCopy Pro - Floppy Disk, CD and Digital Media Data Recovery...
Floppy disk, CD-R/W, DVD, digital camera card and zip disk data recovery software. Free Trial Download - Fast & Easy...
Naltech Software - DVD Data Rescue, CD Data Rescue, data recovery
...discs recorded by common CD/DVD writing software ... DVD Data Rescueâ„¢ and CD Data Rescueâ„¢ Data recovery power DVD Data Rescueâ„¢ and CD Data...
CD Data Recovery Software Hard Drive Data Recovery,CDR CDRW DVD R RW...
CD Data Guys Data Recovery Center. We specialize in hard drive, CD-R, CD-RW, DVD, and Floppy Disc data recovery. Data recovery software links...
Hard Drive Data Recovery Software Tools, Disk Recovery Utilities...
Software | Data Eraser | Data Recovery Software - FAT Recovery | NTFS Recovery | NTFS & FAT Partition Recovery | Linux Recovery CD Data...
Hard Drive Data Recovery Software. NTFS Reader for DOS NTFS DOS.
Active@ UNERASER - Data Recovery Software & DOS Undelete ... Bootable CD Image (ISO) Bootable ISO Image for NTFS Reader. UNICODE.EXE...
InfinaDyne
Creators of CD-R Diagnostic, data recovery software which recovers data from unreadable CD-R and CD-RW disks, and AccuBurn-R, software which...
Data Recovery Software Hard Drive repair- RAID data recovery tools
CD/CDRW DVD/DVDRW drive data recovery. ... Testimonials From Data Recovery Software Customers. Testimonials From Hard Drive Recovery Customers
CDRoller - Toolset for CD and DVD Data Recovery
CDRoller is a powerful, easy-to-use and low-cost software for CD/DVD data recovery. Key features: 1. Effectively retrieves the data from the discs...
|
Technorati Profile |