Disaster Recovery Software

Have you ever thought about the myriad of problems that can happen to your computer system?  Despite all the electronics, many parts of a computer are still based on mechanics and these can break down, rendering your computer useless.  Have you ever dropped your laptop or notebook computer or do you tote your netbook from place to place, subjecting it to wear and tear that it doesn’t usually get while sitting on a desk. 

If you should pick up a computer virus, who knows what the damage could be to your important files.  Or, maybe your kids might accidentally delete those irreplaceable photos of the once-in-a-lifetime family trip to Europe from two years ago.  And as terrible as it is to consider, businesses can be vandalized by a single disgruntled employee.  Or perhaps that game you installed to help your child learn their fractions made a few more changes to your system than you expected it would, and now Windows won’t start. 

 So what can you do to be ready to recover when one of these bad things happen?  Fortunately, there are options.  Computers are so pervasive in our businesses and lives that an entire market has evolved to help individuals and businesses recover from computer failures.  But in all cases, these require that you take steps before the disaster strikes.  Think of it as insurance for your computer.  You may have the original installation disks for all your programs but do you have copies of your data files—your photos, your music, your documents?  

The most basic thing you can do to prepare for a disaster is to use a backup and restore program to make copies of the data on your hard disk(s).  Without a backup of some kind, recovery of your data in case of disaster can be a difficult and costly proposition (and may just be impossible).  Backup programs can be had for prices anywhere from free (for the most basic functions) up to costly programs that are packed with features. 

No matter what backup and restore program you use it will be useless if you don’t actually use it on a regular basis and keep it up to date.  Most backup programs offer two types of backups, differential and incremental.  A differential backup starts with you making a full backup of your system’s hard disk.  Each time the differential backup is used, it makes a backup of only the data that has changed since the last time you did a full backup. 

When using this strategy you’ll typically want to make a full backup on a regular basis followed by some number of differential backups.  As more time goes by since your last full backup, more and more data is included in the differential backup making it get slower and slower.  An incremental backup starts with a full hard disk backup as well, but then only makes backups of data that has changed since the last incremental backup. 

Incremental backups tend to be smaller and quicker to make but to recover your data you must have the starting full backup and all the incremental backups.  Differential backups tend be larger and slower to make but to recover your data you must have only the full backup and the most recent differential backup.  Of course, another related option to these two is to backup your entire hard disk every time you make a backup. 

Perhaps the most significant downside to this approach is that the larger your data, the longer it takes and you need to have a place to put all that data. You should expect to have either another hard disk of appropriate size or something else such as a series of CDs or DVDs or some other media to store the backup data.  Of course the upside is that you need to only have the one backup if you need to restore.

The next important thing you need to have is to be sure that you have copies of the original installation disk or file for every important program you have installed on your system.  If you bought a program that came on a CD or DVD, make sure you put those CDs or DVDs in a safe place so that you can use them in case you need to reinstall a program.  In some cases, the license of the program will allow you to even make a backup of the CD or DVD for yourself. 

Another critical point is that many programs require you to enter a “key” code you must enter before they will install  in order to help to prevent piracy (illegal copying) of the program—you can’t install without entering the correct key code. Make sure that you keep that key code as well—consider using an adhesive label to attach it to the (non-data!) side of the CD or DVD so that it is with your disk.  Often, software manufacturers include the key in the documentation of the program or on a separate card in the packaging and those may be easily misplaced. 

If you downloaded the install program, be sure to copy that original downloaded file to a CD or DVD and treat it just like something you bought off the shelf.  Often if you need to restore to a new system because your old one is simply dead and not worth repairing you may not be able to easily restore your programs from your backup because of hardware or other differences between the two systems (like the new system has a different version of Windows). 

Your path to restoration may have to include re-installing your programs and then using your backup to restore your data.  You won’t be able to easily re-install those programs without those original installation disks or downloaded installation files.

Finally, if you absolutely cannot live without your computer system for any significant length of time, consider having a spare system ready for use, with a legal copy of your backup/restore software ready to go.  If your computer is so important that you cannot live without it, having a spare could be a lifesaver. 

If your computer that you use all the time fails, simply swap it out, swap in the spare, run your backup/restore program to restore your data, and keep on going.  Of course, you may need to rebuild or recreate data that was not included in a most recent backup, but you can get going again quickly.  When using this approach, keep in mind that your spare computer counts as a system for licensing and that you own an appropriate number of software licenses to cover it.  This may seem expensive, but consider how much it may cost to not have a system for a day or more.