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| Cloning Your Data |
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Featured Articles May 2001 • Vol.12 Issue 5 Page(s) 44-47 in print issue |
Cloning Your Data Periodic Backups Minimize Data Loss | ||
 Recently, one of our writers got a distress call from his mother. Her computer had become infected with a virus that erased some of the files required to boot to Windows. In the process of fixing the problem, a technician reformatted her hard drive and reinstalled Windows, erasing all her data along the way. Every Sunday school lecture, e-mail message, and file on her computer was gone, and because she didn't have backup data, it was gone for good. Fortunately, she doesn't use her computer for business or storing important personal information, so this occurrence was an inconvenience more than a disaster, but not everyone would be so lucky. It's never too soon to ponder the effect losing all your financial and tax records, family history information, and e-mail messages would have, much less losing a doctoral thesis or that best-selling novel you're working on. If you're experiencing pangs of guilt for not protecting your data, this article is for you. We'll show you how to back up your files so that you never lose data, regardless of what happens to your computer. Moreover, we'll show you how to make those backups quickly. In fact, most readers will find that they can back their files up while they grab a cup of coffee or run to the bathroom.  Data Prioritization Backing up your files isn't hard, but making an effective backup quickly takes some planning. Fortunately, you will only have to go through this preparation once. The first thing to do is establish a hierarchy of importance in order to determine how much protection to give various types of files. For example, if Microsoft Office stops working, you can get the installation CD and reinstall the damaged file(s). Because it is so easy to recover Office without a backup, backing up your Office files (or any other commercial software you have installation diskettes or CD-ROMs for) makes little sense. The same is true for shareware or freeware, which you can download from the Web any time you need it. In fact, it rarely makes sense to backup software. This is especially true since most software installations modify the Windows Registry (a database containing information on program configurations and user preferences) and will not run from a restore unless the program's installer restores those same Registry settings. However, if the files containing your best-selling novel or tax records become damaged, you may find it difficult or impossible to replace them without a backup. Since these data files are important to you and difficult to replace, it makes sense to back them up frequently. In general, the files on your hard drive fall into four categories. The first, Programs, includes Windows, Office, and any other software you have purchased and any shareware or freeware you have downloaded. The second category is configuration files. These are the files that programs create to store their settings or other files you create to customize your computer. If you make changes to Windows, the OS(operating system) stores that information somewhere, either in a configuration file or the Registry. The same is true for changes you have made to any other software. Being able to restore this information is nice but not essential. For configuration data stored in the Registry, restoring it may not be worth the effort. Data is the third category. It includes the documents, spreadsheets, presentations, and other files that you create and modify. These files are irreplaceable if they are lost, so it is essential to back them up on a regular basis. The fourth category, static data, includes the MP3 and video files that you download or create. They differ from regular data in that you'll rarely modify them once you create or download them. You can re-create these from a CD or download them again, so you may not need to back them up. If you wish to have a backup, however, you only need to make a single backup when you first save them to your PC. File Segregation Now that Microsoft's FAT32 (32-bit file allocation table) supports large hard drives (the previous version, FAT16, only recognized drives or partitions up to 2GB in size), many users have one massive drive that contains everything. The trick to having an efficient backup strategy is to make frequent backups of just your data while making only occasional backups of programs and static data (if you back the last two up at all). However, this can be difficult if everything is lumped together. The solution is to segregate your files, putting program files together with configuration files and then putting data and static data in their own separate areas. The PC we used in preparation for this article has about 1,112MB of programs and configuration files, 500MB of data files, and 3,841MB of static data. With all of that lumped together, a backup consumes almost 5,500 MB of space, and it takes a considerable amount of time to transfer 5,500 MB from the computer to the backup media. Imagine how much quicker it would be to transfer just the 500MB that really need to be backed up. You could try to configure a backup routine that just backs up the data, but there are two easier approaches. The first is to partition your drive into three logical hard drives. That way, you could have programs and configuration files on your C: drive, data on the D: drive, and MP3 files on the E: drive. You could then back up the data on the D: drive quickly every night and back up the programs and static data less often. Partitioning a hard drive with Windows requires that you reformat the drive, which erases any data on the drive surface. Don't worry; a program from PowerQuest called Partition-Magic ($70; 800/379-2566, 801/437-8900; http://www.powerquest.com) can painlessly partition your hard drive in just a few minutes with no loss of data. While this approach works well, you should strongly consider leaving your hard drive as-is and purchasing a second hard drive to partition and use for both data and static data. Hard drives are inexpensive and easy to install. Having all your data and static data on a separate physical drive makes it simple to move that data to a new computer if your current computer fails or you buy a new one. It also allows you to pull your irreplaceable data if you have to have your PC serviced. Readers with newer computers have extra incentive to add second hard drives, as several vendors have stopped shipping Windows CD-ROMs with their new PCs. Instead, you get a "recovery" CD that essentially erases the entire hard drive and replaces its contents with the files just as they come from the factory, including hundreds of programs you may not even want. If your data is on that hard drive when it is "recovered," it is erased. Keeping your data on a second drive will leave it unaffected by this process. Backup Types You can perform two basic types of backups, full and incremental. A full backup is a backup of every file in your backup set (the group of files you've designated to include), whereas an incremental backup is a backup of only those files that have changed since the last backup. Incremental backups are much faster and require less media space but are harder to track, more difficult to restore from, and more likely to have problems during the restore. Typically, you will have several sets of backup media. You back up to the first, then rotate to the second, and so on until you run out of media and then start over with the first. This is called a rolling backup. Having multiple backups protects you from damaged storage media, and lets you restore your data from one of several earlier versions. You must also be concerned about where you store your backup media. If you store it at the same physical location as your PC, you are making an on-site backup, while media stored somewhere else is an off-site backup. On-site backups are more convenient but do not protect against fire, theft, or other disasters because the backup media are also lost. Some people maintain both for convenience and added security. Backup Strategy Each file type needs its own backup strategy. Programs and configuration files only need to be backed up when you install a new program, delete an existing program, or make major changes to a program's configuration settings. These occurrences are generally rare, so you will only need to back up these files occasionally. Because programs take up a lot of space, you should run this backup at night, or some other time when you won't need the computer for other tasks. MP3 files and other static data files rarely change, and many users only rarely add new files. That makes this data a perfect candidate for an incremental backup when you add new files or change existing ones. Your data is likely to change on a daily basis and generally has the most value of any files stored on your PC. For these reasons, you should back it up frequently. As mentioned earlier, we have about 500MB of data on our test PC, and it compresses down to fit onto a single 100MB Zip disk. Our PC has an internal Zip drive, so a full backup of all our data takes less than 10 minutes. In the space of a coffee break, we can create a full data backup with no disk swapping. You may also find that your data will compress onto a single Zip disk. If you have the slower parallel port Zip drive, you can run the backup during lunch or at night, or run faster incremental backups. If your data is extremely important, you might not want to depend on a single backup media. Your backup plan may include daily full backups to Zip disks and weekly backups to tape. You may even want to make monthly CD-R (CD-recordable) or CD-RW(CD-rewriteable) backups in duplicate and store one copy of each off-site. With such an approach, it is unlikely that you will lose much data, and you can let all the backups listed above run without supervision.
Using Microsoft Backup If you use Windows 98 or Windows Me, you already have a decent backup program called Microsoft Backup right under your nose, although you'll probably have to install WinMe's Backup before you can use it. Load your WinMe CD-ROM, click Browse This CD, click the ADD-ONS folder, then MSBACKUP, and click Msbexp.exe. Backup will install in a few moments, then reboot your PC and you're ready to make a backup. 1. Start Backup by clicking the Start button, pointing to Programs, Accessories, and then System Tools, and clicking Backup. 2. Backup runs a wizard (a step-by-step guide for new users) that offers three choices: Create A New Backup Job, Open An Existing Backup Job, and Restore Backed Up Files. Select the first option, then click OK. 3. The wizard asks if you want to Back Up My Computer or Back Up Selected Files, Folders and Drives. The first option performs a full backup; the second lets you select which files to backup. Select the method you want (if you select a full backup, skip step four).
5. Indicate whether you want your backup set to include all the files you've marked or just the ones that you've added or changed since your last backup. 6. Select the backup device to use. Microsoft Backup works with Zip drives and some tape drives, but not CD-R drives. You can even create backup files on your hard drive, although if you only have one hard drive this rather defeats the purpose. 7. The wizard asks if you intend to Compare Original And Backed Up Files To Verify Data Was Successfully Backed Up and if you want to Compress The Backup Data To Save Space. The first option double-checks the backup but doubles its completion time, so it's best for unattended backups. The second option decreases backup size and is a good way to economize data storage space. 8. The wizard asks you to name your backup job. Enter an appropriate moniker and click the Start button to begin backing up your files. The Windows 95 version of Microsoft Backup requires the same information but lacks a wizard to walk you through the process. Rather, it presents you with a dialog box and requires you to make the selections manually. Once started, the following steps work in Win95: 1.Click the Backup tab. 2.Select the files you want to include in your backup set and click the Next Step button. 3.Select the tape drive or subdirectory to receive the backup. 4.Click the Start Backup button. 5.Enter a name for your backup set and click OK. Both versions keep you informed of their progress with a progress indicator dialog box. When your backup is finished, click the OKbutton and close the program. Safe Data Is Happy Data Some readers may want to begin backing their data up daily, while others will probably stick with weekly or monthly backups. Whatever program you choose, if you follow the suggestions we've outlined in this article, you'll have all your data located together for quick and easy backups, and your backup files will be safe and sound. Because your backups will be so fast and easy, you won't be tempted to skip them, and your data will always be protected.  by Ronny Richardson
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