Back Up Your Data

First let me say here that I don't like to give lectures. However, I get numerous phone calls & emails about a hard drive that died or is on the way out. Save yourself the expense & trouble by backing up your important stuff at least once a month. Don't go six months without a backup - all those pics you cannot live without, all your documents, etc., might be toast without a backup.

Let's face it, hard drives are not physical file storage cabinets where you shove papers and pictures in and they will always be there. Drives fail, fly apart, stop spinning, decide to lose the partitions, make funny noises, and generally go out no matter how important the stuff you have on them is, or how much you think hard drive failure will not happen to you.  Don't be fooled by the new Solid State Drives, they fail and never start back up.  There is little indication they are failing, so do your backups.

If you have Windows 7/10/11, it has a built in utility to create a system image and back up your data automatically. It works very well, I have used it to re-image a PC that was failing, and it worked great! The PC was restored back to fully working in about 30 minutes. You can set it to run weekly, monthly, whatever interval works for you. You can back up to another drive inside the PC, and or an external hard drive. I like an external drive that can be unplugged and stored away for when you need it.

No need to mirror the entire drive unless you want a complete copy of the drive. A CD-R or DVD-R will do, save the pics that are one of a kind, documents you need, your favorites files, ect. to a disk ONCE A MONTH and you will limit your data loss in case your hard drive does fail. Remember, it is not IF the drive fails, but WHEN, so do your backups without putting it off, doing it tomorrow or scrambling to find data recovery after the fact. Give yourself a once-a-month reminder, such as when you pay your mortgage/rent, car payment, etc.

Data recovery has a small chance of success. It takes forever, can be quite costly and a limited amount of files can be recovered in their entirety. Save yourself the hassle and expense that may get you nothing and just back the entire drive up to an external hard drive, or make disks to save the important stuff. You can reload the operating system and all those programs you use, but those pics of the kids, friends, pets, ect. are going to be toast unless you back them up on a regular basis.

I use Office 365 with OneDrive that lets you back up all docs and duplicate them across as many pcs as  you like, just log into One drive on another pc and it backs up the master copy to the new pc once you set up what to back up and how in the initial settings on the first pc. The great thing about OneDrive, you change a document or add a photo on one, you get it on every other pc signed into that OneDrive account.

Be careful though, if you make an error or delete something it removes it from all other pc's.  You can go hunt it down on the online master copy in the recycle bin.  I have spent years supporting Office 365 from my Corporate Job days. if you need assistance with Office 365 it is billed at $75 for the first hour here at the shop.

Jets PC provides data backup services at $75 per hour. It can take anywhere from one hour to several.  Save yourself some serious money and a big headache by regularly backing up your data.

Jets PC does not provide data recovery service.

End of lecture. Jets PC in San Antonio PC Service in San Antonio