Tech Support Pits:

From Trish===
Hi there Webby
Trish from Oz here again, after reading the 'pitz' it 
occurred to me that I too should do a 'backup' of my 
precious machine.  So what is the best way to do that?  
Doesn't matter if I sound dumb, probably a lot of other 
people out there dumb as me'.  Just want to know the 
best way and I'm sure you can let me not to mention 
heaps of other or you readers just how to do the 
'backup thing' the best way.  

And what are we going to back up exactly, are we 
going to back up our files, I do know how to do that 
but the 'runnings of our precious machines".  What 
exactly do we save with a backup when we know 
how to do it.

Thanks  Trish

Dear Trish
The best back-up is onto a portable hard drive.
If you get one that is big enough, you can back up 
the entire harddrive. There is software that will allow
you to make a binary disk copy.

If you lose your computer in a fire or burglary, you pop
the portable drive out of the plastic cover, stick it into
a replacement machine, and everything is exactly as 
it was at the moment you made the back-up. Then you
stick the drive that came with the new machine into 
the plastic box of the portable drive.

The trick of course is to take the portable drive with
you and put it into your safety deposit box, or in a cigar
tin and buried in the garden. If you are prepared for the 
worst, it usually does not happen.

Second best is to pop the side cover, stick a spare
hard drive in there as a slave drive, back up onto
that and then take that drive with you. That takes 
about 45 seconds longer than plugging a portable
drive into the USB port.

Ideas #3 to #9 are dumb ideas.

Tenth best is to back up all the CREATED files
onto CD's or DVD's. Unless you made a disk copy
as in #1 and #2, you will have to re-install all programs
anyway, so you just save their CD's or downloaded 
installation files. 

For doing the back-ups there are hundreds of different 
programs available. BounceBack Professional from
http://www.cmsperipheralsinc.com/product_bounceback_software.htm
is probably the best by far. It makes a bootable back-up
that you can just pop into a new computer and continue
working without any guessing or cussing, as if it was a
drive image copier, but it also lets you copy just single
files, which the drive image copiers won't let you do.

Have FUN!
Dear Webby