Backing Up Your Stuff Part 4: Preparing For Disaster

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Okay, picture this ...
your computer system has been ... by the ...
outbreak of the dreaded typhoid Mary virus. You never knew what hityou.
One minute the system was fine. You received a Okay, picture this ...
your computer system has been destroyed by the mostrecent outbreak of the dreaded typhoid Mary virus. You never knew what hityou.
One minute the system was fine. You received a nice email with anattachment which you opened, and boom, your system crashed.
You rebooted butit got an error. Now what?Or you could have mice (the animals) in your house.
Mice love to createnests in warm places, and your computer is pretty warm. Just imagine allthose little teeth gnawing away on all of the wires ...Worse yet, imagine it rains and a leak appears directly over your hard drive...
or your "friend" spills coffee on the CPU cabinet. I could go on and onabout what could happen to your computer.I don't know about you, but I spend more time on my home computer than I dowatching television, reading, eating or anything else except possiblyworking at my day job.
When my computer has a problem, especially one thatresults in a boot failure, I get extremely angry. I feel like I have beenbetrayed by my best friend.
If the system gets damaged, I feel just as muchpain as if a good friend went into the hospital.The thing to do is to make sure you are prepared for the worst possiblething that can happen ... total system failure.
This is a very difficulttask to write about as there are many different ways that a computer can eatitself or be eaten - perhaps as many ways as there are computers.It is beyond the scope of this article to go into great detail on how tomake your system totally recoverable. There are many other great resourceson the internet and in the documentation that originally came with yourcomputer which will help you prepare.Briefly, though, what you need are the following:- The CD ROM containing the operating system installation files.
Thisvirtually always comes with a new system. It will be labeled something like"Windows 95" or "Windows 2000".- Any other kind of recovery CD that came with your system.- A bootable media.
Sometimes the CD ROM itself is bootable. More often, youwill get one or more floppy diskettes with your system.
Keep these in a safeplace.- An emergency repair disk. This is usually one (sometimes more) disketteswhich contain all of the configuration options for your operating system.You need to create these occasionally (they are not automatic) - usuallywhenever you make a major change.- Copies of all of the updates and patches that have applied to theoperating system.
What I do is maintain a writeable CD with a copy of eachservice pack and hot fix that I've installed. It is also a good idea to keepa text file (one the writeable CD itself) with a list of what needs to beinstalled in the correct order.- Copies of each of the applications that have been installed on thecomputer.
If your applications came on CD, then keep those in a safe place.If you downloaded the applications, then store a copy on a writeable CD. Inaddition, you will need to keep copies of any patches or updates to theseapplications on writeable CDs.I like to keep a box with all of the above items in a safe place.
I call thebox my "crash cart", as it contains everything that I need to restore mysystem to health in the event of a software error.In addition it's a good idea to keep the following in the crash cart:- A sheet of paper with a list of people and companies you can call for helpin the event of disaster. This may include technical support numbers of thecomputer manufacturer, the operating system company and any applicationsproviders.- A log of all of the changes and installations that were made to thecomputer system.
This will be invaluable to determine what to recover inwhat order.- All of the documentation that came with the system in the original box.- Another sheet of paper with network information (TCP/IP addresses andsuch), modem settings and other control panel values. This will be importantif you ever have to type it all back in.
Some of the most importantinformation is any settings or values provided by your ISP which allow yourcomputer to get on the internet.When you have a few spare minutes, when it is raining out and the televisionis showing nothing good at all, when the kids are in bed and the husband orwife is asleep, when you are totally bored out of your mind ... then recoverthose manuals that came with the system.
You know which ones I'm talkingabout ... the ones you have buried in your closet under five feet of clothesbehind the Christmas tree.Now, open the books and read them.
They will usually have some instructionson how to recover your system in the event of failure. This is theinformation that you need to understand, and it's better to spend the coupleof hours up front reading than it is trying desperately to figure it out oneevening - the day before that term paper is due, of course.And in the worst case, if you have all or most of the above items you willhave the materials that the computer geek in the house down the street willneed when you come begging for help at his door...
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