How Backups and Drive Imaging Can Save You from Big Problems

The best way to prevent the loss of data is to have more than one copy of that data and to have that copy stored just about anywhere but where the original data is stored.

One way to do that, of course, is to simply copy your files to another medium besides your main hard drive because the hard drive can be vulnerable to the kinds of disaster you’ve been reading about. But if you’re serious enough to be reading this book, it’s likely that you need a more organized solution than simply copying individual files to another medium such as a floppy, Zip disk, or CD.

This is where backup and drive-imaging software comes in. Understand that these are two different types of software, although you may find some of their different features packaged together.

The term backup refers to a process by which you back up usually a complete volume of data, such as an entire hard drive or specific folders on that drive into an archive or master file, which is then stored on some other type of medium, such as tape cartridge, floppy, Zip disk, CD, and so on. MS Backup, included with Windows XP (although you’ll need to install it specifically since it doesn’t install to your desktop automatically) and earlier versions, is an example of backup software, but there are dozens available commercially as shareware, and even a few public domain or freeware types.

Installing Backup for Windows XP

Locate your Windows XP install CD and slide it into the drive. Using Windows Explorer or My Computer, look at the contents of the install CD to locate the file \ValueAdd\MSFT\NTBACKUP\ntbackup.msi. Just click the file, and it will launch a wizard to help you install Backup.

The idea here is that if you suffer a data loss or other problem with your system, you can use a process known as restore to copy back the data you stored in the backup archive.

Drive imaging is a different animal from backing up because this process actually makes a virtual copy of your hard drive as it exists at the time you make the image. Where drive imaging is most useful is when you want to replace one hard drive with another: you can make an image of your current drive (assuming it’s in good shape) and restore that drive image on the new drive once it’s prepared for use. It also makes the job of setting up more than one PC much faster because you can create a master drive image that you then install on each additional PC.

But you can also restore individual files from a drive image (at least, with recent versions of imaging software); you don’t have to restore the entire drive image at once.

Some of the most widely used drive-imaging software packages include PowerQuest’s Drive Image, Norton/Symantec’s Ghost, and Nero’s Drive Imager.

When you devise your disaster recovery plan in the next chapter, you’ll learn more about using backups and drive images as part of your prevention/restoration game plan.