This unseasonably wet and wacky weather (at least in my neck of the woods) may have put a damper on enjoying the great outdoors but it certainly hasn’t diminished users
from updating their latest adventures on Facebook, Twitter and
MySpace. That’s the fun part of the whole connected experience. The
not so fun part takes place when the computer does something you’re
not expecting, a system crash. Nine times out of ten the computer
will restart and be right as rain. That one time though, the system
shows the “Blue Screen of Death”. Years of hard work
stored on the computer can be gone in a flash and I’m not talking
flashdrive.
The unenviable task that most computer
users put off is to establish a backup routine before its too late.
A passing storm strong enough to cause brownouts can overload house
circuitry and fry delicate hardware, namely your computer. So what
to do????
Most users are computing with Windows
XP as their choice of operating systems. That’s good news!!!!
Microsoft XP has a built-in backup and restore utility natively
available. The user simply needs to click on the start menu, select
run, and type Ntbackup.exe.
A menu appears asking whether to perform a backup or restore. Chose backup and click next.
I suggest clicking the last option on the menu ” let me
choose what to back up” Select what files or folders to backup.
I would stick to critical data.
Programs can always be re-installed if necessary. The following
screen asks where to save the backup. It’s critical to pick either
another partition on the drive but even better, a separate media
storage device.
I recommend buying an external usb hard-drive. They’re inexpensive, large storage capacity, and
portable. That’s the easiest solution. If you’re on a network with
3 or more machines, or a small to medium business scenario, then it
might be worth thinking about commercially available 3rd party
software/hardware package that should provide better reliability.
The next window displays the final
settings as to how the backup is to be performed but you’re not done
yet. Onto the advanced settings. Determine what type of
backup is to be performed. There are four options to choose from and
a description of what each does is displayed, so its up to the user’s
discretion. The next few windows ask if the system should check for
integrity and compression. I recommend skipping those windows.
The most important step is the scheduling aspect. Pick a day and
time when the computer is not in use. Please note — The computer
will only run the backup when the machine is on. Third party
software can give you the option of turning the computer on and off
to make the backup. It’s up to the user as to what works best. Hopefully you have the settings to your liking, jus like Ron Popeil says “set it and forget it”. It’s a good idea to confirm that a backup has been created. Run ntbackup.exe again to restore the data for a sanity check. Good luck and happy automated backup’s to you!!!!!!
