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HasYour Computer Hard
Drive Ever Crashed? Are You Challenged by Backups?
By Jimmie Newell
The following scenario’s
have probably been repeated thousands of times, on computer systems of
all kinds and sizes, operated by all levels of users from complete novice,
to expert user.
· You log on and your
computer will not boot to your operating system.
· You have installed
some piece of new hardware, or some new software, your computer cannot
find your operating system.
In more than 20 years
of using personal computers, I have experienced all kinds of computer/operator
failures. Some were caused by equipment failure, others by me doing something
dumb. It really makes no difference, when your computer does not work,
the only thing that matters is getting it up and running, and saving as
much data as possible
All mechanical devices,
will at some point fail, there is no timetable that tells you exactly
when they will fail, however it is usually when you can least afford the
time lost or the cost of repair, or of course immediately after the warranty
has expired. Current computer hard drives are very reliable, they work
for hours on end and keep right on ticking, they are however partially
mechanical, as such they are subject to unannounced failure. They could
fail in 5 minutes, or in 5 years or even longer.
As computer users
we have all been admonished time and time again to backup our work on
a regular basis, as insurance against losing data. Data can be lost in
other ways of course, but if you do have a current backup you will only
lose whatever you created or changed just before the failure.
My first experience
with a hard drive failure was the classic computer will not boot. My first
course of action was to call tech support from the manufacturer. The customer
service rep stayed on the phone with me for about 4 hours, as we tried
to diagnose where the problem was, after trying every thing she knew to
try, she said they would send a technician to replace my hard drive. Of
course none of my data was easily retrievable, and I did not have a current
backup. Immediately after this episode I began to backup my data frequently.
However at this particular time, backup software was not real easy to
use, and choosing the media to backup to required the installation of
more hardware. I quickly fell out of the habit of frequent backups.
I have experienced
logon failures after adding or changing hardware or software many times.
Usually followed by a call to customer support, which you most likely
will have to pay for. Your support call may be transferred to a foreign
country, your support person may or may not be highly qualified, there
have been many instances where I felt that I knew more than the support
person. There have been many instances that I managed to fix the problem
myself, while waiting for support to get back to me. Sometimes I lost
information, sometimes it was there but hard to find etc. The times that
were most successful were when I did have a current backup.
Backup software has
evolved, there are very easy programs to use, they are very easy to automate,
the media options are many and easy to set up.
In my current setup
I use Norton Ghost 9.0 as my software of choice, and I send my backups
to a removable USB 2.0 hard drive. The advantages of this system are an
extremely easy to set software program that can do anything form complete
backups on whatever schedule you choose to complete copies of hard drives.
The speed and safety of using a removable hard drive would be hard to
beat. Because of the “set it and forget it” nature of this system, I now
have complete backups always at hand.
Peace of mind is a
wonderful thing
Jim Newell
Please visit http://www.edotmall2000.com/backup.htm
for more information on these products and other solutions to backup and
storage problems.
Jimmie Newell is an
experienced computer user, and web publisher with many articles to his
credit. Jim is the webmaster for http://www.edotmall2000.com
an online shopping destination.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/
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