Imagine if your computer were stolen
and you had to restore a backup to a brand-new computer. Could you
do it? If the answer is no, you??™re not backed up.
You need to be able to complete a backup easily and often, to store the
backup in a safe place (away from the computer) and to retrieve all your
data at any time without incident. If it??™s too difficult or time-consuming,
odds are you won??™t do it??”so make it easy for yourself.
A bare-minimum backup could be little more than a single CD or USB memory
key with your last three or four important documents on it. It??™s better
than nothing, and it does protect your most recent work, but what about
your email, your web browser bookmarks, your digital photos, and the
thousands of documents you??™ve written over the past six years?
I know what you??™re thinking, because I??™ve heard it a thousand times: nothing
on my computer is really that important, so it??™s really not worth the time to
back up. OK, assume that??™s true??”how long would it take you to reinstall
Windows and all your applications, install all your drivers, reconfigure all
your hardware, and customize all your toolbars? If you have a full backup of
your system, the answer is not only ???not long,??? but ???no problemo??? as well.
Ideally, you should be able to back up your entire hard disk on a single piece
of media. We won??™t even entertain the idea of CDs (you??™d need 57 of them
Preventive Maintenance and Data Recovery | 333
Troubleshooting
to back up a full 40 GB hard disk), nor DVDs (you??™d need nine standard or
five dual-layer discs).
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