Tomorrow Is World Backup Day – So, Are You Going To? Backup, That Is.

I have some bad news – sad news – for you this morning. Those graduation pictures you treasured, the pictures of your toddler’s first steps, this year’s income tax return which was just about ready to be filed, that resume you just finished updating – GONE – ALL GONE.

Your Hard Drive just quit overnight – never to be booted again. I know I should feel some measure of sympathy for you – but, I don’t.

I’m not trying to be a big meanie* here but, it seems to me, that you are the architect of your own misfortune. A little pre-planning to safeguard your irreplaceable data; documents, digital photos, email messages, personal and business related work, and important private data – could have saved you considerable distress.

If only you had a backup – but, you don’t – do you? I suspect that it’s little consolation but, you’re not alone. Despite the importance of Hard Drive and individual file backups, most computer technicians will tell you that typically, computer users’ do not backup their irreplaceable data.

It’s a little late to tell you this but, if you had been one of the few, out of the ordinary, computer users, who regularly and faithfully backup, you would have had some work ahead of you – but, you would have recovered your data.

All of the above of course, is an imaginary scenario – in fact, your system did boot up his morning. But, that’s hardly cause for complacency.

Redundant information: Just like death and taxes are a certainty, the fact that your computer’s Hard Drive will crash one day and refuse to respond, is every bit as certain.

If you don’t yet have a backup plan, it’s time you thought seriously about developing one. The effort involved in learning how to protect your data, by developing and implementing a backup plan in today’s computing age, is minimal. Much easier than it was, even as little as two or three years ago.

The best backup strategy includes imaging your Hard Drives and partitions, since that allows you to restore your important data, your complete operating system, as well as your installed applications, user settings, etc.

There are loads of free applications out in the wild blue that, used properly and regularly, will speed to the rescue. One of the best free program – one that I have no difficulty recommending is – EASEUS Todo Backup.

This is a brilliant application which will allow you to backup, recover your backups, image your Hard Drives, clone your Hard Drives, and a host of additional features. All of this, in a “follow the bouncing ball” simple, user interface.

If there’s an easier way to backup critical data, I have yet to find it.

The user interface has been designed so that a user with minimum computing experience, should have no difficulty.

The following screen captures illustrate the simple process of backing up a particular folder.

In this case, I choose the task name, selected the folder to be backed up, selected the backup media/location, and …..

Done!

Bonus: You can copy backup images to your personal cloud for data double protection. More info here.

A ton of options so that you can set the parameters of the task to suit your particular needs.

Recovery, is point and click simple.

Additional functions and features are available under the “Tools” menu.

In the following example I’ve run a check on the test backup to verify readability.

Finding that an image file is unreadable when called upon, ranks with one of life’s low points – well, sort of.   

A quick initial check is a prudent move.

You’ll have the option of creating a system boot disk. You should do so.

The “emergency disk” will allow you to boot into EASEUS Todo Backup and then choose from a number of options.

  Fast facts:

System Backup and Recovery – One-click system backup. Backs up entire system state including the operating system and installed applications on-the-fly without interrupting your work to get the system up in time after crash.

File and Folder Backup – Backs up specified files, network shared files, files in use, folders or file types in case of virus attack, hard disk failure, or deletion by accident, etc.

Disk & partition Backup – Full backup disk(s)/partition(s), dynamic volume(s), or GPT disk(s)/volume(s) to image. It ensures PC security and instant data recovery in case of any data loss.

Incremental Backup – Provide alternatives to perform full backups each time by offering incremental backup. To capture changes saving time & disk space.

Backup Schedule – To run backup automatically at a predefined time. By scheduling a backup task, your system and important data can be backed up now, daily, weekly, monthly.

Disk Clone Tool – Clone or transfer all the data on a hard disk to another. Clone disk is especially useful to upgrade your hard drive to a new one without reinstalling operating systems and applications.

System requirements: Windows 2000, XP, Vista, Win 7, Win 8. (32 bit, 64 bit).

Download at: EASEUS

If you’re looking for a free application to handle all of your backup needs, I don’t think you’ll be disappointed in EASEUS Todo Backup. Give it a try.

* In recent years, I’ve written 20+ articles on the importance of backing up critical data and, it distresses me somewhat that they have been amongst the least read articles I’ve written.

Good buddy TeX, summed up the backup issue neatly in a comment to a previous backup article sometime back, when he wrote – There are so many good programs out there for backing up, the problem is getting people to take that whole step seriously. It’s like dying,  “That always happens to someone else” theory.

It’s a point worth considering.

For additional reading on this important task, you might consider dropping by the World Backup Day site – DON’T BE AN APRIL FOOL. Backup your files. Check your restores.

Paragon Virtualization Manager 12 Compact for FREE! – Save $29.95 On This 3 Day Giveaway

Virtualization is all the rage. With good reason – this very cool technology, if used correctly, has the power to control malware intrusion through the use of a ‘”virtual” environment, rather than operating in a “real” environment.

But, running in a virtual environment, provides an opportunity to do so much more than simply building a buffer between you and the bad guys. Program files, data files, and application directory structures can all be stored on a Virtual Disk Drive.

So, what can you do with Virtualization Manager 12 Compact? As it turns out – quite a lot. To avoid any confusion – this application is a “Virtualization Manager”. You must have virtualization software such as, Oracle VirtualBox 4, Microsoft Virtual PC, VMware Workstation, VMware Fusion, already installed.

Usage Scenarios – From the site:

Scenario 1: Use different operating systems on one computer.

Virtualization allows parallel use of several incompatible operating systems on one computer. You can run Windows, Linux, Mac OS X inside of virtual machine on one host machine.

Scenario 2: Continue using your old PC’s applications – enjoy your favorite applications in a virtual environment on your new computer.

When it’s time to upgrade to a new PC and operating system, you may find that some of your favorite applications haven’t been updated yet to work with it. Using Virtualization Manager 12 Compact, you can make a virtual clone of your old system before migrating to a new computer. Take advantage of an up-to-date powerful computer while still having access to favorite applications from the old computer.

If your old computer is corrupted but you have a backup image of your old system made with Paragon software – you can virtualize it using Virtualization Manager installed on your new PC.

Scenario 3: Safely evaluate new software.

New software can be unintentionally harmful to your computer. You can easily avoid negative system conflicts by creating a virtual clone of your current physical system using Virtualization Manager 12 Compact.

Try new software in a safe environment and decide whether it works and is exactly what you need before making it a permanent addition to your collection.  If changes made on a virtual machine were successful you can just migrate your updated system from virtual environment to your PC.

Scenario 4: Make a system bootable on different virtual environment.

Virtualization Manager makes your system bootable when migrating to new hardware by automatically injecting the required drivers in your operating system. If you unsuccessfully virtualized your system with a 3rd party tool and it became unbootable, the problem can be resolved with Virtualization Manager.

I have not tested this application extensively (just heard about this free offer this morning) – but, I have installed it and taken it for a quick run. Based on my initial impression I’ll give it high marks for ease of setup, and ease of use. The bottom line – a reasonably solid virtualization manager.

Here’s a quick run through:

In the following example I’ve chosen to create a virtual disk.

Clicking on this choice opens the “Create Virtual Disk Wizard” as shown below.

I’ve set the initial size at 5 GB using Microsoft Virtual PC. You can download Microsoft Virtual PC – here.

Done! How hard was that?

System requirements: Windows 7 (32/64-bit), Vista (32/64-bit), XP Professional (32/64-bit), XP Home.

Supported Virtual Machines: Oracle VirtualBox 4, Microsoft Virtual PC, VMware Workstation, VMware Fusion.

This giveaway offer expires April 20th, 8 am (GMT-4).

How to get Paragon Virtualization Manager: Go to the Paragon Facebook page – click the like button – follow the instructions.

Here’s a sample of the process.

Special thanks to regular reader Delenn13 for the heads up on this free offer.

It’s World Backup Day – So What Are You Doing About It?

I have some bad news for you this morning. Those graduation pics you treasured, the pics of your toddler’s first steps, this year’s income tax return which was just about ready to be filed, that resume you just finished updating – GONE – ALL GONE. Your Hard Drive just quit overnight – never to be booted again. I know I should feel some measure of sympathy for you – but, I don’t.

I’m not trying to be a big *meanie here but, it seems to me, that you are the architect of your own misfortune. A little pre-planning to safeguard your irreplaceable data; documents, digital photos, email messages, personal and business related work, and important private data – could have saved you considerable distress.

If only you had a backup – but, you don’t – do you? I suspect that it’s little consolation but, you’re not alone. Despite the importance of Hard Drive backups, most computer technicians will tell you that typically, computer users’ do not backup their irreplaceable data.

It’s a little late to tell you this but, if you had been one of the few, out of the ordinary, computer users, who regularly and faithfully backup, you would have had some work ahead of you – but, you would have recovered your data.

All of the above of course, is an imaginary scenario – in fact, your system did boot up his morning. But, that’s hardly cause for complacency. Just like death and taxes are a certainty, the fact that your computer’s Hard Drive will crash one day and refuse to respond, is every bit as certain.

If you don’t yet have a backup plan, it’s time you thought seriously about developing one. The effort involved in learning how to protect your data, by developing and implementing a backup plan in today’s computing age, is minimal. Much easier than it was, even as little as two or three years ago.

The best backup strategy includes imaging your Hard Drives and partitions, since that allows you to restore your important data, your complete operating system, as well as your installed applications, user settings, etc.

There are loads of free applications out in the wild blue that, used properly and regularly, will speed to the rescue. One of the best free program – one that I have no difficulty recommending is – EASEUS Todo Backup.

This is a brilliant application which will allow you to backup, recover your backups, image your Hard Drives, clone your Hard Drives, and a host of additional features. All of this, in a “follow the bouncing ball” simple, user interface. If there’s an easier way to backup critical data, I have yet to find it.

The user interface has been designed so that a user with minimum computing experience, should have no difficulty.

The following screen captures illustrate the simple process of backing up a particular folder.

In this case, I choose the task name, selected the folder to be backed up, selected the backup media/location, and …..

Done!

Recovery, is point and click simple.

Additional functions and features are available under the “Tools” menu.

For example – you’ll have the option of creating a system boot disk. You should do so.

Fast facts:

System Backup and Recovery – One-click system backup. Backs up entire system state including the operating system and installed applications on-the-fly without interrupting your work to get the system up in time after crash.

Restore System to Dissimilar Hardware – The feature of “recover to dissimilar hardware” can simplify system migration with restoring system to dissimilar hardware configuration for hardware replacement under WinPE recovery environment.

File and Folder Backup – Backs up specified files, network shared files, files in use, folders or file types in case of virus attack, hard disk failure, or deletion by accident, etc.

Disk & partition Backup – Full backup disk(s)/partition(s), dynamic volume(s), or GPT disk(s)/volume(s) to image. It ensures PC security and instant data recovery in case of any data loss.

Incremental/Differential Backup – Provide alternatives to perform full backups each time by offering incremental backup and differential backup. To capture changes with saving time & disk space.

Backup Schedule – To run backup automatically at a predefined time. By scheduling a backup task, your system and important data can be backed up now, daily, weekly, monthly.

Network Data Protection – Easy way to full backup network data, including network shared files on NAS and Windows, with full backup, incremental backup, differential backup and schedule backup, etc.

Disk Clone Tool – Clone or transfer all the data on a hard disk to another. Clone disk is especially useful to upgrade your hard drive to a new one without reinstalling operating systems and applications.

System requirements: Windows 2000, XP, Vista, Win 7, Win 8.

Download at: EASEUS

If you’re looking for a free application to handle all of your backup needs, I don’t think you’ll be disappointed in EASEUS Todo Backup. Give it a try.

* In recent years, I’ve written 20+ articles on the importance of backing up critical data and, it distresses me somewhat that they have been amongst the least read articles I’ve written.

Good buddy TeX, summed up the backup issue neatly in a comment to a previous backup article when he wrote – There are so many good programs out there for backing up, the problem is getting people to take that whole step seriously. It’s like dying,  “That always happens to someone else” theory.

It’s a point worth considering.

One More New Year’s Resolution – I Will Learn To Backup My PC

THIS is one resolution you MUST keep. And, to make it a snap to stick with this resolution – featured elsewhere in this post, you’ll find an updated review of arguably the best free (and dead easy to run), backup app around – EASEUS Todo Backup 4.

Here’s why I’d like to push you in that direction. Let’s start with a quote from my good buddy Dave Brooks, an A+ certified professional computer technician, and a popular guest writer here on Tech Thoughts:

“You don’t need to know how a PC works to use it, just like your car, if you have problems you visit a mechanic, you don’t need to know how it does what it does.

One thing you DO need to know is – you MUST back up your computer if you have anything of even remote value to you on it.”

Dave knows what he’s talking about. After fifteen years in the industry, Dave knows, that at some point, your computer will suffer system, or hardware failure.

What are you going to do then – if you don’t have a current (and tested) backup of your critical data, system/device drivers (something many of us forget), and user operating system settings?

Most important of all – how are you going to recover your irreplaceable data; documents, digital photos, email messages, personal and business related work, and important private data?

So backups are important – critically important. Despite the critical importance of Hard Drive backups, most computer technicians (including Dave), will tell you; typically, computer users’ do not backup their irreplaceable data.

If you should suffer catastrophic Hard Drive failure and you are one of the few, out of the ordinary, computer users who regularly and faithfully backup, you will have work ahead of you, but you will recover. But without a plan, your data becomes a hostage to fortune. Your Hard Drive might be damaged by malware – it might not. Your Hard Drive might fail – it might not. But why take the risk?

If you don’t yet have a backup plan, it’s time you thought seriously about developing one. Make developing and implementing a backup strategy, a New Years resolution you intend to keep.

The effort involved in learning how to protect your data, by developing and implementing a backup plan in today’s computing age, is minimal. Much easier than it was, even as little as two or three years ago.

The best backup strategy includes imaging your Hard Drives and partitions, since that allows you to restore your important data, your complete operating system, as well as your installed applications, user settings, etc.

There are loads of free applications out in the wild blue that, used properly and regularly, will speed to the rescue. One of the best free program, that I have no difficulty recommending, is EASEUS Todo Backup.

Free EASEUS Todo Backup 4 – Easy Backup For The Rest Of Us

This is a brilliant application that will allow you to backup, recover your backups, image your Hard Drives, clone your Hard Drives, and a host of additional features. All of this, in a “follow the bouncing ball” simple, user interface. If there’s an easier way to backup critical data, I have yet to find it.

The user interface has been designed so that a user with minimum computing experience, should have no difficulty.

The following screen captures illustrate the simple process of backing up a particular folder.

In this case, I choose the task name, selected the folder to be backed up, selected the backup media/location, and …..

Done!

Recovery, is point and click simple.

Additional functions and features are available under the “Tools” menu.

For example – you’ll have the option of creating a system boot disk. You should do so.

Fast facts:

System Backup and Recovery – One-click system backup. Backs up entire system state including the operating system and installed applications on-the-fly without interrupting your work to get the system up in time after crash.

Restore System to Dissimilar Hardware – The feature of “recover to dissimilar hardware” can simplify system migration with restoring system to dissimilar hardware configuration for hardware replacement under WinPE recovery environment.

File and Folder Backup – Backs up specified files, network shared files, files in use, folders or file types in case of virus attack, hard disk failure, or deletion by accident, etc.

Disk & partition Backup – Full backup disk(s)/partition(s), dynamic volume(s), or GPT disk(s)/volume(s) to image. It ensures PC security and instant data recovery in case of any data loss.

Incremental/Differential Backup – Provide alternatives to perform full backups each time by offering incremental backup and differential backup. To capture changes with saving time & disk space.

Backup Schedule – To run backup automatically at a predefined time. By scheduling a backup task, your system and important data can be backed up now, daily, weekly, monthly.

Network Data Protection – Easy way to full backup network data, including network shared files on NAS and Windows, with full backup, incremental backup, differential backup and schedule backup, etc.

Disk Clone Tool – Clone or transfer all the data on a hard disk to another. Clone disk is especially useful to upgrade your hard drive to a new one without reinstalling operating systems and applications.

Full list of features here.

System requirements: Windows 2000, XP, Vista, and Win 7 (32 and 64 bit).

Download at: EASEUS

If you’re looking for a free application to handle all of your backup needs, I don’t think you’ll be disappointed in EASEUS Todo Backup. Give it a try.

If you found this article useful, why not subscribe to this Blog via RSS, or email? It’s easy; just click on this link and you’ll never miss another Tech Thoughts article.

Free EASEUS Todo Backup 2.5.1

If you don’t yet have a backup plan, it’s time you thought seriously about developing one. The effort involved in learning how to protect your data, by developing and implementing a backup plan in today’s computing age, is minimal. Much easier than it was, even as little as two or three years ago.

The best backup strategy includes imaging your Hard Drives and partitions, since that allows you to restore your important data, your complete operating system, as well as your installed applications, user settings, etc.

There are loads of free applications out in the wild blue that, used properly and regularly, will speed to the rescue. One of the best free program, that I have no difficulty recommending, is EASEUS Todo Backup 2.5.1.

This is a brilliant application that will allow you to backup, recover your backups, image your Hard Drives, clone your Hard Drives, and a host of additional features. All of this, in a “follow the bouncing ball” simple, user interface. If there’s an easier way to backup critical data, I have yet to find it.

Following installation, a restart is required.

The user interface has been designed so that a user with minimum computing experience, should have no difficulty.

The following screen captures illustrate the simple process of backing up a particular folder.

In this case, I choose the task name, selected the folder to be backed up, selected the backup media/location, and ….. Done!

Recovery, is point and click simple.

Additional functions and features are available under the “Tools” menu.

Fast facts:

Backup Management – By Managing backup tasks and plans, you can change a backup task or plan and execute the changes immediately, delete image files, and even convert a disk image.

Mount and Unmount – Mount a disk and partition image to a virtual partition (working as ordinary, logical drives) to explore or copy files in it.

Image Splitting – Split an image file into several files of specified size to fit different storage devices. This feature is helpful to burn the backup file to CD/DVD.

Image Compression – Compress a backup image to save disk space. The higher compression level, the smaller image is.

Check Image – Check the integrate of backup image. You can validate whether you will be able to recover from the backup image.

Disaster Recovery – Restore important files from backed up image and perform disaster recovery just by simple clicks. It ensures quick recovery from system crash, a personal error, hardware or software failure, virus attack or hacker’s intrusive destruction, etc.

Disk and Partition Clone – Migrate or copy all the data on a hard disk or partition to another.

Wipe Data – With this feature, you can erase all the sensitive data on a disk or partition to protect your privacy.

Bootable Media – Run EASEUS Todo Backup from an emergency disk to perform recovery in case of system crash, etc. USB drive, CD or DVD Bootable media can be created.

System requirements: Windows 2000, XP, Vista, and Win 7 (32 and 64 bit).

Download at: Download.com

If you’re looking for a free application to handle all of your backup needs, I don’t think you’ll be disappointed in EASEUS Todo Backup. Give it a try.

Note: EASEUS Todo Backup 3.0 is scheduled for release in Mid- August 2011. In the meantime, if you’re the experimental type you can download the Beta release – here.

If you found this article useful, why not subscribe to this Blog via RSS, or email? It’s easy; just click on this link and you’ll never miss another Tech Thoughts article.

Save $29: Partition Assistant Professional Edition 4 Day License Giveaway

There are a number of sound reasons to partition today’s large Hard Drives. The best reason I can think of (from a personal perspective), is simply this – data organization.

Additional good reasons to partition could include, keeping your valuable data separate from the operating system so that if you are faced with an OS reinstall following an infection, you can do so without losing irreplaceable data. As well, a multiple boot configuration (resident on one of my machines), which allow users to have more than one operating systems on a computer, requires multiple partitions.

While we’re talking about an OS reinstall following a malware infection, let me just remind you that partitioning is NOT a substitute for backing up your important data. Hard Drives can, and do, fail – a good backup strategy is an absolute must.

Software developer Aomei Technology, recently invited me to be part of their four day giveaway (January 25 to 29, 2011), for a free licensed version of their premier partition manager – Partition Assistant Professional Edition.

Partition Assistant Professional Edition, with its simple user interface allows you to easily create, delete, format, move, resize partitions, and much more. The “much more” characterization (see fast facts), takes this application out of the range of typical free partition management applications.

Click graphic to expand.

Publisher’s description:

This professional edition is an advanced partition manager software to assist you to optimize your disk performance; most widely used by personal users which allows you to be an partition solution expert with professional unique technology.

Fast facts:

Extend NTFS partition without restarting computer.

Resize and Move partition to optimize disk space management.

Extend Partition Wizard help you step by step expand the size of your selected partition.

Clone/Copy Disk, Clone/Copy Partition.

Merge two or more partitions into a larger one.

Split one partition into two or more.

Create, Delete and Format partition.

Convert file system from FAT to NTFS.

Wipe permanently sensitive data to anti-recovery.

Wipe hard drive, Wipe Partition.

Repartition by drag & drop mouse on a disk panel.

Support resizing NTFS and FAT32 file system.

System requirements: Windows 2000/XP/Vista/Windows 7 (Both 32 bit and 64 bit).

Publisher’s site – Aomei Technology

Giveaway download link. This is the only link from which the license giveaway is available.

If you’re in the market for a partition manager that includes professional capabilities, then Partition Assistant Professional Edition is worth a close look. As well, FREE has a nice ring to it.

If you found this article useful, why not subscribe to this Blog via RSS, or email? It’s easy; just click on this link and you’ll never miss another Tech Thoughts article.

Free EASEUS Todo Backup – Easy Backup For The Rest Of Us

Here’s a quote from Dave Brooks, an A+ certified professional computer technician, and a popular guest writer here on Tech Thoughts:

“You don’t need to know how a PC works to use it, just like your car, if you have problems you visit a mechanic, you don’t need to know how it does what it does.

One thing you DO need to know is – you MUST back up your computer if you have anything of even remote value to you on it.”

Dave Brooks knows what he’s talking about. After fifteen years in the industry, Dave knows, that at some point, your computer will suffer system, or hardware failure.

What are you going to do then – if you don’t have a current backup of your critical data, system/device drivers (something many of us forget), and user operating system settings?

How are you going to recover your irreplaceable data; documents, digital photos, email messages, personal and business related work, and important private data?

So backups are important – critically important. Despite the critical importance of Hard Drive backups, most computer technicians (including Dave), will tell you; typically, computer users’ do not backup their irreplaceable data.

If you should suffer catastrophic Hard Drive failure and you are one of the few, out of the ordinary, computer users who regularly and faithfully backup, you will have work ahead of you, but you will recover. But without a plan, your data becomes a hostage to fortune. Your Hard Drive might be damaged by malware – it might not. Your Hard Drive might fail – it might not. But why take the risk?

If you don’t yet have a backup plan, it’s time you thought seriously about developing one. Make developing and implementing a backup strategy, a New Years resolution you intend to keep.

The effort involved in learning how to protect your data, by developing and implementing a backup plan in today’s computing age, is minimal. Much easier than it was, even as little as two or three years ago.

The best backup strategy includes imaging your Hard Drives and partitions, since that allows you to restore your important data, your complete operating system, as well as your installed applications, user settings, etc.

There are loads of free applications out in the wild blue that, used properly and regularly, will speed to the rescue. One of the best free program, that I have no difficulty recommending, is EASEUS Todo Backup.

This is a brilliant application that will allow you to backup, recover your backups, image your Hard Drives, clone your Hard Drives, and a host of additional features. All of this, in a “follow the bouncing ball” simple, user interface. If there’s an easier way to backup critical data, I have yet to find it.

The application requires installation of driver software so just say “yes”. Following installation, a restart is required.

The user interface has been designed so that a user with minimum computing experience, should have no difficulty.

The following screen captures illustrate the simple process of backing up a particular folder.

In this case, I choose the task name, selected the folder to be backed up, selected the backup media/location, and ….. Done!

Recovery, is point and click simple.

Additional functions and features are available under the “Tools” menu.

Fast facts:

Backup Management – By Managing backup tasks and plans, you can change a backup task or plan and execute the changes immediately, delete image files, and even convert a disk image.

Mount and Unmount – Mount a disk and partition image to a virtual partition (working as ordinary, logical drives) to explore or copy files in it.

Image Splitting – Split an image file into several files of specified size to fit different storage devices. This feature is helpful to burn the backup file to CD/DVD.

Image Compression – Compress a backup image to save disk space. The higher compression level, the smaller image is.

Check Image – Check the integrate of backup image. You can validate whether you will be able to recover from the backup image.

Disaster Recovery – Restore important files from backed up image and perform disaster recovery just by simple clicks. It ensures quick recovery from system crash, a personal error, hardware or software failure, virus attack or hacker’s intrusive destruction, etc.

Disk and Partition Clone – Migrate or copy all the data on a hard disk or partition to another.

Wipe Data – With this feature, you can erase all the sensitive data on a disk or partition to protect your privacy.

Bootable Media – Run EASEUS Todo Backup from an emergency disk to perform recovery in case of system crash, etc. USB drive, CD or DVD Bootable media can be created.

System requirements: Windows 2000, XP, Vista, and Win 7 (32 and 64 bit).

Download at: EASEUS

If you’re looking for a free application to handle all of your backup needs, I don’t think you’ll be disappointed in EASEUS Todo Backup. Give it a try.

If you found this article useful, why not subscribe to this Blog via RSS, or email? It’s easy; just click on this link and you’ll never miss another Tech Thoughts article.

New Hard Drive? – Clone Your Old Hard Drive with Free Easeus Disk Copy

A great tip from guest writer Mark Schneider on how to clone your hard drive using free Easeus Disk Copy.

Upgrading your hard drive can be a rewarding and simple procedure for the everyday computer user. Cloning your hard drive, or making a exact copy, is the easiest way to get your new hard drive up and running quickly.

It’s also a popular tool for many professional IT people to backup a computer setup to be instantly restored in case of a disaster.

There are a number of paid commercial programs that serve this purpose; Norton Ghost is very popular as is my favorite, Acronis True Image. Both do a great job and have a number of useful options besides the cloning function.

They are great programs but they cost money, and money is tight right now, so I decided to try out a few free cloning programs that do the job just as well – albeit, without the options the paid programs include.

The first program I tried successfully was Easeus Disk Copy. Easeus Disk Copy allows a user to replicate their hard drive on to an external hard drive; the only option besides the full copy option is to copy an individual partition – a useful feature that I didn’t test.

Easeus Disk Copy is simple to use. Just download the program and burn the ISO image to a CD. Then boot to the CD and follow a simple set of windows guiding you through the process. Once your target disks are selected you simply wait for the process to take place.

This is where Easeus falls short of the paid programs I’ve used. The entire operation took over 3 hours to clone a drive with about 140GBs of data to the new drive. Not a big deal for most situations but if you’re in a hurry, you’ll want a different program.

Another issue which was no big deal but could be for some people, was that out of the 3 drives I cloned, 2 required me to repair the Windows Boot Loader using an install disk. No big deal for me, but if you don’t have an install disk for your operating system, or don’t feel comfortable doing this, it could be a real hassle.

Overall, I think Easeus Disk Copy did a fine job; it’s free and relatively simple. Since hard drives have become so inexpensive, it seems silly to pay for software if you’re only using it on rare occasions. I give it a conditional “fully recommend” rating’ – the condition being, the user knows how to burn an ISO file, and is able to repair the boot loader if needed.

Fast facts:

Copy all of your hard drive: Creating a bootable CD/DVD, it allows you to copy entire disk in case of unknown/proprietary file systems.

Partition copy: Enables you to copy one partition to another partition you want.

Disk copy: Enables you to clone one disk to another sector by sector.

Sector by sector copy: Makes physical 1:1 copies (clones) of hard disks and partitions. This ensures 100% identity to the original.

Safe, simple and fast: It is a very fast and easy way to copy all or part of a hard drive to another hard drive with Disk Copy.

Supports inaccessible disk copy

Supports booting from CD/DVD

Friendly graphical user interface

Relay disk space for insufficient destination

Support hard disks up to 1 TB

Download at: Download.com

This is a guest post by Mark Schneider of the Techwalker Blog, who brings a background as a high level super user, to the blogging world.

Why not pay a visit to Mark’s site today.

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Laptop Computer Stolen from Hospital Room – Irreplaceable Photos GONE

Just a few days ago, here in Toronto, as reported in the Toronto Star,   a despicable crime was committed (not the first such crime of this type, this year), when a Laptop computer was stolen from a hospital room.

The story, more or less in chronological order, went something like this:

• Laptop stolen from hospital…
• Hospital theft suspect may be involved…
• Laptop theft suspect captured …
• Owner hopes for recovery of photos from stolen laptop – “A woman whose stolen laptop was recovered without its photos of her dead daughter will likely get them back, computer experts say.”

Kudos to the Toronto Police Service, who recovered the Laptop within a few days – only to find that the irreplaceable photos had been erased.

As well as newspaper coverage, this sad story received massive play on Toronto’s seven television stations. It was evident that the victim was extremely distraught over the loss of her dead daughter’s photographs.

While I had great sympathy for the Laptop owner, at the same time I was mystified that:

• No recovery software was installed on this machine; despite the fact that Laptops are at high risk for thief.

Recent survey results from the Ponemon Institute, indicates that more than 10,000 laptops are lost, or stolen, each week at U.S. airports alone, coupled with statistics which show that a laptop is stolen, not lost but stolen, every 53 seconds.

Free recovery applications are widely available on the Internet – see Download Prey – A Free Recovery Solution to a Lost or Stolen Laptop, here.

• The irreplaceable photos of the victim’s dead daughter were not backed up to another medium.

USB flash drives cost virtually nothing – prices range from less than $8 (2 GB), to under $30 (16 GB). That’s a lot of photo storage per dollar. A simple Windows Explorer right click menu command “Copy to folder”, would have copied the photos to a USB stick in seconds.

Worse however, was the realization that the Laptop Hard Drive was not backed up. This, despite the fact that that there are some very substantial free backup applications available for download on the Internet – see Free Paragon Backup and Recovery – Incremental Backup Included, here.

Finally, while I’m unsure as to the cost of recovery this woman faced, the newspaper story did mention a cost of $80 to $150, for a simple recovery operation such as this.

This expense could easily have been avoided if the victim had been aware, that free software is readily available on the Internet to effect photo recovery – see Recover Picture Files On Your Digital Camera Card, on regular guest writer Rick Robinette’s site What’s On My PC.

The recovery application Rick reviewed, Recuva, is capable of recovering photos from virtually any media – including Hard Drives.

I’m not trying to be a big “meanie” here but, it seems to me, that this woman was the architect of her own misfortune. A little pre-planning, particularly with a high risk item like a Laptop, could have saved her considerable distress. But, like too many computer users, her interest stopped with the on/off switch.

As is usual with mainstream media, the Toronto Star failed to grasp the significance of this event, and use it as a teaching tool so that other computer users could learn from the mistakes evident in this occurrence.

Perhaps, I expect too much.

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Free Paragon Backup and Recovery – Incremental Backup Included!

Popular guest writer Rick Robinette, has a knack for finding great free applications. Paragon Backup and Recovery, one of Rick’s latest finds, is a highly inclusive free backup and recovery application which even includes incremental backup, something that’s rarely found in a free application. This application is a “must have”, for average computer users.

Paragon, a software development leader for over 15 years has available for non-commercial use (at home) a powerful disk imaging (backup) and recovery package (for FREE), called Paragon Backup and Recovery.

“Smart people backup; Backup & Recovery is smart backup.”

With Paragon Backup and Recovery, you can create a backup image of an entire hard disk (including GPT-discs!), or system partitions, to guarantee the operating system’s working capability.

The “cool factor” with this application is its ability to perform a differential backup that will only archive changes since the last full sector-based image, thus saving backup storage space.

In other words once you have made a complete backup image of your PC (preferably to an external drive), you can perform (select) subsequent differential backups that will only backup the changes from the initial full backup; thus saving time and drive storage space.

As with most disk imaging applications, make sure you create a recovery disk that can be used to boot up your system in the event your computer is no longer booting into Windows. With Paragon Backup and Recovery, you will have the option to create a bootable  USB Flash drive, CD or DVD to recover your PC on demand.

As you continue to read, you will notice that Paragon Backup and Recovery is loaded with numerous features that you typically do not see in other FREE comparable disk imaging applications.

If you currently do not have a backup or disaster recovery plan in place, Paragon Backup and Recovery is a great option.

If you want to learn more, I encourage you to take a look at the User’s Manual [ HERE ] that provides in-depth and detailed instructions on “how to” use this software.  These instructions are also a great starting to place to learn about disk imaging software.

Fast facts:

• Cyclic Backup – complete infrastructure for establishing a self-acting data protection system, fully compliant with the set-and-forget backup policy
• Support for the latest hardware as well as hard disk partitioning schemes.
• Support of all present day techniques to store backup images
• Disk backup to save not only all on-disk information but also the system service structures. It is ideal for making a backup image of an entire hard disk (including GPT-discs!) or system partitions to guarantee the operating system’s working capability
• Differential backup  to a sector image to only archive changes since the last full sector-based image, thus considerably saving the backup storage space. To restore this kind of backup you will require a full image and one of its differentials
• Restore an entire disk, separate partitions image
• Restore with Shrink to restore a backup amount of actual data of the image
• Create bootable USB Flash drive, CD or DVD to recover your PC on demand
• Differential Partition Backup (Create a differential image of a partition)
• Recovery Media Builder: builds a new “recovery media” to boot from in case of an unbootable system
• Check Recovery Discs: checks the recovery media for integrity and boot ability
• Graphical representation of the data to gain a better understanding
• Comprehensive wizards to simplify even the most complex operations
• A context sensitive hint system for all functions of the program
• Previewing the resulting layout of hard disks before actually executing operations (so-called virtual operations)
• Create Partition
• Format Partition
• Delete Partition
• Assign/Remove Drive Letter
• Hide/Unhide Partition
• Mark Partition as Active/Inactive
• Modify: change volume label,Test Surface
• Check File System Integrity
• Add an archive to the database
• Delete the archive from the database
• Restore from the selected archive
• Restore File From Archive
• Differential backup
• Check Archive Integrity
• Mount/Unmount the archive
• Backup Features
• Restore Facilities
• Advanced Backup Tasks
• Supplementary Tools
• User Friendly Fault Minimizing Interface
• Partitioning tools
• Operations with Archives

System requirements: Windows 7 (32/64-bit), Vista (32/64-bit), XP Professional SP2 (32/64-bit), XP Home SP2, Windows 2000 Professional SP4

Download at: Paragon Software Group

This is a guest post by Rick Robinette, who brings a background as a security/police officer professional, and as an information technology specialist to the Blogging world.

Why not pay a visit to Rick’s site at What’s On My PC. Like me, you’re sure to become a frequent visitor.

If you found this article useful, why not subscribe to this Blog via RSS, or email? It’s easy; just click on this link and you’ll never miss another Tech Thoughts article.