YIKES!Ok, I'm getting old. The first time I read that, I saw Preparation H....That's one of those: "gee if I had only...." type of days when you seem to be all prepared with every precaution and ? nothing happens! But as soon as you turn around and don't tend to some type of preparation all H breaks loose and you get caught between a rock and a hard place!
Hi there
Please note I said "Sufficient or Adequate Backup". This means NOT relying on a SINGLE device for keeping backups on -- you should have a MINIMUM of TWO.
Incidentally that's why I always prefer decent commercial solutions for Backup rather than the "Freebies". The Free ones are a million times better than nothing but for the small amount you pay for a decent robust piece of software that will save you so many times in time / data loss / even money it seems to me that around 45 USD is a trivially small amount of money to pay.
Remember also that you don't need to backup everything every day -- take a FULL backup every week say and then take Incrementals daily. Incremental backups are those that only backup data that has CHANGED. The commercial backup solutions enable this to be done very easily. Some of the "Freebies" might offer this facility - but some don't so check if you are using a Free utility.
Also distinguish between what you can ARCHIVE and what needs to be backed up regularly. For instance the major part of most peoples music libraries can be "archived" since these rarely change much. You have to devise a decent strategy but you don't have to willy nilly backup several TB of data every day. Archived data also doesn't have to be online either -- just have some mechanism for retrieving this data when you need it.
As for the OS -- Always Image this separately - especially before installing any software -- so if the software doesn't work just restore the system --much much better (and safer) than relying on various "registry cleaners" or "un-delete / Un-install" 3rd party stuff.
Keep the OS in its own separate partition - or separate SSD if using a small SSD. A W7 partition even for a large system with loads of applications installed doesn't need to be much more than around 50 - 60 GB. Same for W8 if you are using that too.
Cheers
jimbo
Backups are like a gun. It's better to have one and not need it, than to need one and not have it.
Besides the built in option for creating full images I went with Acronis TI which reduces the sizes of images with a degree of compression as well as back up the main drive on two other completely separate drives in case one of those goes belly up. Other things are backed up externally to prevent any possible loss or to back up other systems along with a few laptops.
Even with all that you also have to take into consideration having a worthwhile av and antimalware detection system inplace that will spot bugs hidden in things you wouldn't expect to find any in like the zip files you download for some free utility that just happens to include some uninvited guest or crapware additive you don't want!
Sloppy backups can lead to major headaches where you can lose as much as if a drive or device decides to quit on you. I-Worms are the most notorious for recoding files when they happen to be a self replicator as compared to other bugs like data collectors you can burn off. The files that get recoded may not be able to restored to a a working state depending on how much of a change was seen. Other bugs simply make as much as possible unusable.
Hi there
Here's where W8 trumps W7 -- the built in Windows defender (re-named -- not the same as windows defender in W7) works extremely well and renders typical A/V software obsolete. (One of the few areas where W8 wins out). However if you install MSE on W7 that's probably just as good (or bad) as most AV software out there -- and of course a system should be CLEAN before it's backed up otherwise it's just junk.
MSE does Real time protection -- anything else is useless since with "after the fact discovery" you don't know exactly when the machine became infected or what the infection has done to the computer since. You should always in any case do a scan before backing up the system -- if infected restore from your previous good backup -- there is NO point using "cleansing" software as you could never be sure that its worked.
Cheers
jimbo
One thing that is essential in any backup scheme, at the beginning, is the one that most forget - A test restore cycle. Best done before the system gets heavily populated with vital data.
You should run a restore both from the OS and from any emergency disk or partition, if nothing more than to ensure you know how it works, but also that it actually does what you expect and need.
That was one thing I found out right away when trying out the updated form of WD(renamed from...) on the 8 CP. For once MS actually put in something that worked for a change. But it still lacks one thing you get with a paid software however namely a good firewall with the web filtering option to selectively filter things out while browsing. That alone can prevent any number of bugs from getting on in the first place.
The malware detection was there however! The SE for 7 however was never upto par according to av industry standards forcing you to attain one or more good protections. The idea of having good removers however is to prevent to need to have to restore everything from a backup or image when the bug(s) can be removed without any harm done. Infected restore points is a different matter there where turning off the feature to nuke all restore points to avoid any possible reinfection is the rule of thumb.
Between the web filtering, active protection I know works with the software here I would highly doubt I will actually use images created while I will still have them anyways for any possible "rainy day". Other events can often force the need to repair or reinstall Windows where an image can still save the day.
The problem with large HDDs (say 2TB or higher) you really need a second in case one fails. I have 2x2TB USB3 HDDs for my backups. I like to keep multiple images over periods of time using 2 different imaging programs. I'll only buy a 4TB if they become cheap enough so I can buy a second.
Quote