You don’t need me to tell you how much we all rely on our computer equipment in the 21st century, if my ‘IT infrastructure’ (smartphone, laptop, tablet & PC) disappeared when I woke up tomorrow I’d be in a real mess!

I wouldn’t be able to run my business, manage my finances, or even call my wife on her mobile (that’s pretty bad isn’t it? I should really try and remember her mobile number!).

Luckily for us many new technologies try and help us with these kinds of problems.

iPhones and iPads can back themselves up automatically to the cloud without us having to interfere, likewise the prolific growth of cloud storage technology such as Dropbox, Google Drive and Microsoft Skydrive means that users of those services generally have their working files automatically backed up for future retrieval.

Despite the obvious benefits offered by the cloud, there is still the age old problem of: ‘What would I do if my PC crashed?’

Most people I speak to about backup tend to be in a state of denial about it all, they know that they should do something to backup their desktop computer but don’t.

I think the reason for this is twofold:
  • They genuinely don’t know what the best way to go about backing up their PC is.
  • Finding out and implementing a solution seems like a lot of effort.

Okay, so what is the best way of protecting your PC from a multitude of issues?

Also Check : Top 5 Online Backup Services to Protect Your Data and Recover Files

Data Recovery by Bootable Hard Drive

How To Recover C-Drive Data Using The Bootable Backup Drives


A bootable backup drive is exactly what it sounds like, a hard drive that backs up your computer and in the event of a problem you can boot your PC directly from it.

The bootable aspect is what stands this backup system apart from many other types of backup methods, it means that the backup drive can fully replace your ‘C drive’ with your computer being none the wiser.

For example, let’s imagine that your hard drive which stores your files and has all your programs installed on it (including Windows) fails. Normally this would mean replacing the drive, re-installing Windows and all your programs one by one and then hoping that you had backed up your data files.

Obviously this is going to take some time to do, and whilst you are arranging a new hard drive installation and finding all your software disks or downloads you are unable to do any work on the machine.

If you had a bootable backup drive installed all you would need to do is boot the PC from this secondary drive, which is normally as difficult as pressing the F8 key (or Del / F5 depending on your PC), and then selecting the backup drive from a list when booting.

You PC would then boot up as normal straight into Windows, all your programs would be fully functional and your data files would be exactly where you left them, how great does that sound?

You could then replace your failed drive at a time convenient to you and simply use the backup software to copy the contents of your backup drive back across to it.

No hassle of losing your PC for a few days, no loss of data files, no reinstallation of Windows and programs.

Not only does a bootable backup drive guard against a hard drive failure, it can be used in the event of system file corruption, virus or malware infections or driver update failures. In pretty much any scenario which leads to your PC being non-bootable you can simply boot from the backup drive and restore back across to your main drive.

Installation & Setup


To get up and running with this backup solution you simply need to add a 2nd hard drive to your computer which is equal or bigger in size than your current C drive.

You then need some software to manage the backups for you. There are a few different providers on the market however I have nothing but good comments to say about Casper by Future Systems Solutions.

The Casper software installs quickly and a wizard guides you easily through the backup process. You can then set a scheduled backup depending on your requirements, I prefer a weekly backup however you may want it daily or even hourly.

The first backup takes a few minutes to complete however subsequent backups take just a minute or two at the most, the scheduled backups run automatically and I rarely even notice them happening.

It really is a set it and forget it backup system.

One final advantage is that if you don’t want to (or can’t) install another drive into your PC, or if you want to take your backup drive offsite then you can simply purchase an external USB drive. The software will backup to that instead of an internal one and it is still fully bootable!

Don’t get caught out with a failed PC, take a few easy steps to ensure you are fully covered in terms of system recovery, install a bootable backup drive solution today.

Darren Atkinson is an IT expert with over a decade spent working on and building computers. He runs MultipleMonitors.co.uk, a specialist PC building company for professional IT users
 
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