You have a firewall installed and in use. You have anti-virus and anti-spyware programs in place and keep them and your operating system updated. You feel safe. Then your hard drive dies and you lose all your pictures, music, movies and documents. malware is not the only culprit responsible for data loss. Hardware failure can also take its toll. With a backup set handy, you can have your computer up and running again in a minimum amount of time, whether you've been the victim of insidious malware or a hard drive failure. With this in mind, backups become an extra layer in your defense system.
Unfortunately, the task of backing up ones hard drive has become neglected by home computer users. This situation is reflected by Windows backup utilities becoming an optional install feature. This trend is further reflected in Windows ME in which backup utilities were replaced by "System Restore". Although System Restore is a great feature, it does not protect against data loss when the system hard drive fails and requires replacement.
With the move to SATA hard drives motherboard manufacturers have been including built in RAID (Redundant Array of Independent Disks) features. Basically, in a RAID system the system hard drive data is mirrored on one or more separate drives. When one drive fails another takes over providing complete data backup. This is expensive to implement and is likely to never be seen in discount store computers and in only a few custom built machines.
Although not available in Home Editions, backup utilities were included in Windows XP Professional. This is mentioned because some of the larger computer manufacturers offered their products with XP Professional installed, while Windows NT and Windows 2000 were not commonly seen in the home computer segment. The practice of installing Windows XP Professional on home use computers made these utilities available to home users once again. As some reviewers have reported, these utilities were not easily found. From this screenshot, you can see that they were also a bit awkward to use.
With Windows Vista, Microsoft has introduced the Backup and Restore Center. This feature can be found in the System and Maintenance area of the Control Panel. Although still not available in home versions it is much easier to find and use. Furthermore, the backup utilities have been updated and are now image based eliminating the need for third party drive imaging utilities such as Ghost. This technology has been integrated into Vista providing some very useful features.
This is a view of the backup subsection of the Backup and Restore Center. It has been divided into sections. One section for file and folder backups. The other section for complete system backups. The restore section of the Backup and Restore Center is similar to the backup section the difference being reversed functions.
This is the first screen you see on clicking the "Back up computer" button in the backup section of the Backup and Restore Center. Devices that are capable of storing or recording a backup are detected and listed on this screen. If you do not have more than one optical drive capable of writing to a CD or DVD or more than one hard drive the only thing necessary on this screen is to click the "Next" button. Users with multiple drivers can use this window to select which device to use for the back up.
The graphic to the left is a close up view of the optical drive selector when more than one is available. Clicking the radio button labeled "On one or more DVDs" enables the list box beneath and selects an optical drive as the back up destination. Clicking the small black arrow head indicated by the arrow in this illustration opens the drop down list. Clicking on a drive in this list selects it as the back up device.
To the right is a view of the hard drive selection list box. It functions just like the one for optical drives. The difference here is that the controls that need to be used are indicated by circles instead of arrows. When the target drive has been selected click the next button at the bottom of the main window.
The window above will only be seen on computers with more than one physical hard drive or a large drive with more than one partition. This screen allows you to include other drives or partitions in the back up. The system partition or drive is listed and by default is marked for inclusion. Here drive D: shown at the bottom of the window can not be included because it was chosen as the back up destination. When you have finished selecting what to include in the back up click the "Next" button at the bottom of the window. Although the Next and Cancel buttons were cropped from this view, they will be present on your computers version of this window.
The next screen allows you to confirm what is being backed up and where it is being backed up. It also provides a ball park figure on the number of CDs or DVDs that will be required. As you can see an entire system backup requires a fairly large number of DVDs so you might want to consider using rewritable media for making backups especially during file and folder backup. Clicking the Start Backup button closes this window and opens an instruction screen in front of a progress screen.
This is the progress screen you will view during the backup process. As the media fills and needs to be replaced, you will see more instruction screens prompting you for new media. These instructions include what to label each disk. It is probably a good idea to follow these label instructions if you want the restore process to run smoothly. With luck a restore won't be necessary but if it is the smoother the operation runs the sooner your computer will be up and running again.
Those who are fortunate enough to have a large external hard drive will find this
particular screen most helpful. Located via this path Start > All Programs >
Accessories > System Tools > Backup Status and Configuration. Using this dialog
you can set up your backup, plug in your external USB hard drive then go take a nap
or whatever else. When you return to your computer the backup task will have been
completed.
I suppose the pros and cons of the types of back up media should be addressed. With
hard drives as the back up destination, you have a volatile magnetic media that allows
complete automation of the back up process. On the other hand, optical drives provide
the reliability of a media that with care will outlast your computer but requires
your presence during the back up process to replace disks as they become full.
Complete System restores are handled in the Windows Recovery Environment. During this process the computers hard drive is reformatted then the system backup is used to return the computer to a usable state. Getting screen shots of this process is not an easy task. Normally a simple Alt+PrintScreen captures the screen images, however, with the system going through format and restore this method isn't available. When time permits we will cover both System Restore and File and Folder Restore. In the meantime, it would be a good idea to look over the Windows help files concerning this subject just in case the worst happens.
Online backup storage might be something you want to consider. There are several available and from what I've heard some allow designation as a network drive making this type of storage very convenient.
Microsoft, Microsoft Office, Windows, Windows XP and Windows Vista are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. Other names have been included in the above text that are trademarks of the respective companies.
