Disaster Recovery

An audit of what you currently have installed on your computer is the first step of a reliable disaster recovery plan.

The second step is to create a reliable back-up of the information you have on your computers.

The safest and most reliable method is to create a duplicate or "ghost" of your current hard drive. The duplicate is then put away in your safe or a secure off-site location, in case of catastrophic failure you simply swap the hard drives, restore your current data and can be back up and running in a matter of minutes. Hard drives large enough to back-up most any drive are available for well under $100

The second most reliable method is to "image" your disk, that is to create a single file that contains all of the information stored on your hard drive and then save that file to a CD or DVD. In case of disaster you can restore the entire image or select files or directories to recover.

DVD recorders are available for about $50 that allow you to save up to 8.5 gigabytes of data and programs (uncompressed) on a single disc. To further protect privacy these discs should be encrypted which is easily done using the included backup software.