The worse thing that can happen to a computer is…..you turn it on….and get a black, blank screen! For some unknown reason, the computer becomes totally inoperable.
For knowledgeable users, this may mean hours of work re-installing the Operating System (Windows or some other system), and more hours re-installing lost programs, and more hours of grief over all the personal information that was lost forever (documents, photos, budgets, etc.)
Less knowledgeable users will suffer the above pains PLUS hundreds of dollars of expense paying a technician to do the work for them.
Over the years a number of such crashes may occur, BUT within 20 minutes your computer can be up and running again, with NO LOSS of DATA, PROGRAMS, or anything else!
The first step in this protection plan is to buy an EXTERNAL DRIVE and attach it to your computer. You need to have an available USB port or eSATA port on the computer to connect the drive.
An IMAGE BACKUP is a “snapshot” of the contents of your hard drive which contains ALL of the information needed to restore your computer to a bootable condition, including all of your programs and files. Not all external drives come with programs to do IMAGE BACKUPS. If you need a separate IMAGE BACKUP program, it is:
Included in Windows 7 at no extra charge.
or
Available for free from the manufacturer if your external drive is a Western Digital or Maxtor brand.
or
Available for purchase from such companies as Norton or Acronis or others.
Once your IMAGE BACKUP program has helped you make an “emergency boot disk” to help start your computer after some future crash, the IMAGE BACKUP PROGRAM will help you to save images of your hard drive at some regular schedule, such as once a month….on to your EXTERNAL DRIVE.
Then, if you do experience a “total crash”, you will be able to boot your computer with the emergency boot disk and RESTORE your latest IMAGE BACKUP from your EXTERNAL DRIVE, to your computer.
If the crash was not a result of hard drive failure, everything will now be running as it was before.
If your hard drive has failed, and needs to be replaced, RESTORING your IMAGE BACKUP to the new hard drive will get it up and running quickly.
