Re: Glad to be back
- From: "Mike Smith" <spam.not@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 18 May 2006 17:03:59 -0700
"John Turner" <nospam@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:e4ivbd$hcu$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
I work for a charity helping disabled people with IT - We had one client who
"simon" wrote
You can get paranoid about backups - not a bad idea though.
Agreed, but there are things you can do to avoid the problem of data loss.
Currently my main PC has two HDDs which mirror each other, so in theory if
one fails mechanically, then the other should survive.
I also back up all crucial information, including digital and scanned
photographs to an external HDD - these are now relatively cheap - around
£100 for a 120Gb external drive which connects to your PC through a USB
cable. I only attach the latter when I want to do a back-up, so again in
theory it should be isolated from any potential virus infection.
And of course these days DVD-R drives are commonplate, and even a cheap
DVD disc will provide several gigabytes of storage.
It's just remembering to do it all regularly and before disaster strikes.
John.
was terminally ill and developed a fascination for pictures of naked
ladies - The system ran under windows 98se and I learned more about
viruses/trojans/rootkits/etc in a few months than I had ever known before.
Solution was simple - Copy of Norton Ghost, you need either two partitions
or two physical drives to use this (at least thats how I do it). I
partitioned his drive with a 4GB C and the rest as D - My Documents was
moved (not copied) to D and all pointers changed to point to it (most
programs have a default folders option).
C is for the operating system and programs, D is for data. This allows C to
be wiped and replaced either with Ghost or with a complete clean install
without affecting the users data.
Start with a clean install, just windows at first
Run ghost, make a boot-floppy. Use the floppy to 'ghost the basic windows
installation (this ends up as a .GHO file on drive D).
Install basic software, do a ghost of the resulting drive C.
Add all passwords etc (and add a text file with all the details of your ISP,
passwords, FTP settings etc)
Do a final ghost of this lot.
Ghost files can be split so they will fit on a series of CDs, most people
should get away with a single DVD. Leave the copies on drive D and keep the
CDs or DVD(s) somewhere safe, just in case.
If an any doubt regarding the integrity of C pop in the (write protected)
Ghost floppy and turn on - doing the restore takes a few minutes (*much*
faster than a clean full install but it sets the partition size as well, so
if replacing the drive make sure the C partition is the same size as the old
one)
NB - If using Outlook you need to back up your e-mails to drive D at
intervals - Do a search on *.DBX, select all the resulting files and copy
these to your back up location on drive D, I use a program (freeware)
called DBXviewer which allows me to access DBX files without them being
associated with Outlook. For the Windows address book search for *.WAB and
copy to the backup folder on D. For favourite websites export as an HTML
page, most browsers allow this, and again store on drive D.
Spybot Search and Destroy (free) includes 'tea timer' which monitors
registry changes, we usually put in Adaware (also free) as well and of
course a firewall such as Zone Alarm (free) and anti-virus (AVG, there is a
'light' version that is free for home use). Evidence Eliminator, intended to
cover your tracks if you go looking at naked ladies, also has a registry
check and restore that (I am told) is useful for eliminating nasties.
To do routine back-ups I like Laplink. It is simple to use, you just open a
'local file transfer' window, point one side at yoiur data and the other at
your back-up location and (with copy newer files only on) copy the one to
the other. At intervals burn the resulting back up to CD or DVD and store.
Ghost is cheap (about £30 I believe, if purchased on its own), I have not
yet tried it with XP but it works with 95, 98 and ME (you would need the
current version for XP, otherwise a second hand copy of Ghost 2001 would do
fine). Laplink is another program I have not tried under XP, but I have
never had a problem with it from Version 2 in the 1980s up to version 2000 a
few years back. I have been told that the 2000 version will NOT work with XP
but I have not yet tried it to see which bits if any do work.
This system worked very well for the chap in question. When his widow handed
back the computer he had not had to call us for months although he had been
using the machine every day (I ran a whole series of cleaners on the drive,
heaven only knows what was on there (I didn't dare look) and we needed it
for another client's machine!)
HTH
Mike
.
- References:
- Glad to be back
- From: Chris Wilson
- Re: Glad to be back
- From: kim
- Re: Glad to be back
- From: Periander
- Re: Glad to be back
- From: Paul Boyd
- Re: Glad to be back
- From: simon
- Re: Glad to be back
- From: John Turner
- Glad to be back
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