Preparing to Survive a Computer Disaster
This is an outline for a talk on how to be prepared should a disaster happen which affects your computer. I gave it twice on Thursday, July 26 - at a breakfast meeting and the second time to the PC Users Group at the Pleasanton Senior Center.
If your group would like me to give this talk, or my "Care and Feeding of your Computer" (good end user habits with a computer), please feel free to contact me!
Disasters
- Natural
(Earthquake, flood, fire)
- Theft
or loss
- Equipment
failure
- Virus/worm
Collateral to collect
- Operating
system CD & key
- CDs
with device drivers from equipment manufacturers
- Installed
software – CDs or documentation from downloads
- Belarc
Advisor report
Backup strategy
- Full
drive backup to external hard drive – with Restore CD
- Data
backup *
* What data do you backup?
Anything you don't want to lose!
- My
Documents (in 2K, XP, Vista includes My Music, My Pictures, etc.)
- Favorites
- eMail
(Outlook Express, Outlook, IncrediMail, Netscape, Thunderbird)
- Address
Book (Outlook Express)
- Downloads
(AOL)
- Undisciplined
applications' data (older Quicken, FamilyTreeMaker, Palm)
Frequency?
- A full
drive backup should be done whenever a new application is installed, major
updates are applied, significant changes to data.
- Data
backups fall into 2 categories:
- Frequently
changed: backup every time you change it (i.e., when you save it back to
the hard drive, then Save As to your backup device)
- Data
subject to minimal changes – quarterly, or annually – make copies and
send offsite and keep one in the car trunk
Backup Media
- Hard
drives – external vs internal
- Magnetic
– floppy, ZIP, JAZ, thumb drives
- Optical
– CD, DVD
- Online
(Internet)
- R.A.I.D.
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