Tag: Back up

What is backup really worth to you? Top 5 Backup software!

Paul

Via Wikimedia.org

We’ve all had that done to us!

In the last few months we have had this very bad ransomware called Cryptolocker, and just how many people don’t really back up their important files.   I am going to alliviate some of this by talking about a few of the ways you could prevent this from happening in the first place.

This is not going to be a why it happened sort of blog post but more to the point of which backup software works best to help keep thos jpegs, and video files save from malicious acts.   Even the best security advise can not help you if you don’t help yourself so this is not a 100% guaranttee but at least it will head you in the right direction.

  • Mozy comes with both a trial version and even a free 5 gb version.   Each of these can help you save you files.   I personally have tried the free version and love it.  Although it isn’t my current backup plan.  I’ve used it in the past and still think it is better than nothing!
  • Google Drive comes with 15 gb free space and can let you share files to other people easily and simply.  I have this one with a 100 Gb plan for 2 years due to my Acer Chromebook.  That is one of the perks of buying a Chromebook.  You get free space for two years.  It also allows me to use this as a mapped drive.  
  • Carbonite which I haven’t used for a long time, has been vetted by tons of experts.   It also has a 15 day trial for one computer unlimited space.   It has helped some people with keeping it in the cloud storage solution.
  • Dropbox is another Good service.   It allows you to share files quite easily and securely.   I haven’t used this service because I don’t need to.   I however have used it in the past and it works really well.
  • Just Cloud is the last one I would recommend visiting.  It can be used on any system and has unlimited storage.  Free Apps and multiple computer backups and shares files with friends.

On a side note, I use Always Sync with Google Drive to keep all my files sync with my laptop.   It however doesn’t need to be used with my Google Chrome. A simple 16 gb to 32 Gb SD card or USB drive can keep your files backed up on your Chromebook.   Some of these do not need to use Always Sync but in most cases unless you have a way to do an offline back up then your still vulnerable.   You can always buy a 500gb Hard Drive to a 1 Tb hard drive and then use Always Sync from time to time to keep it backed up!

You should always have more than one type of backup in case the unthinkable actually happens.   This post is to help you find out how to keep those valuable files from being ransomed and encrypted illegally.   Once a week you should plug in that drive and sync your files with the hard drive.   Do not keep it plugged in because that will not prevent the problem.   It has to be offline to prevent problems like this ransomware!

How to recover you blog posts!

Paul2 Replies

Source: singingthroughtherain.com via Kathryn on Pinterest Source: singingthroughtherain.com via Kathryn on Pinterest

If I’d Only backed up!

That’s probably what you are thinking right now. Most hosting providers like Hostgator will allow you to backup your content for free but do we ever really do that every week. I’ve learned my lesson on this because of what happened last week. Let’s go back in time shall we!

The Back story.

After some really hard considerations with both my tech-linkblog site and this site, I recently decided I need to merge them into one BIG site because I felt that the ones who were coming to my old site were not really seeing the potential of my new site. So After searching bing on how to merge two domains, I found some articles that would help me do that!

I started off merging!

Yep you guessed it, I thought why would I need to worry about having backups when all I am going to do is merge two different databases into one. The Problem with that is that you never quite understand that doing that is a risky situation and thus you won’t know how to fix it until it is too late. That is where we come to this article for. I lost like 100 articles that were REALLY important I don’t say that lightly, people who have websites for SEO traffic know all to well the importance of some BIG articles. I’m no exception because it helps your ranking and Authority.  These articles actually are the ones that bring in some good links and even helps support my blog.  So you can imagine how I felt and my horror when I found out some of my blog entries were GONE and couldn’t get them back!!

How did I get my blog posts back?

You’re probably wondering how I got some of my really important blog posts back.   I know your really curious as to how I got them back without a backup.    In this article I will give you two or three sites that can help you get your blog posts back, but remember it is going to be a long process.   If you had a lot of blog posts then you may never get all the back but you can at lease get some of them back.     Before i begin though, I must tell you that if you are worried about your hard drive you should try Crashplan [Affiliate Link], they give a free trial and can run on Windows/Mac’s/and Linux. I don’t want anyone loosing their Photos, Videos, or Anything else that is important to you.

Google Cache

If you can grab the cache page before it gets erased then you can use that to replace the content that you’ve lost.  You’ll have to search for it then once you find it, just click the Cached link.   It however isn’t going to be a good solution if everything get’s removed.   Nothing in the article will prevent that unless you do a complete restore and thus you need to keep backups.

Now this is good to point, if you use the Internet Archive, but remember they will not index all your pages and if you only have excerpts on your home page then you really can’t use this service but it is something to consider if your do have one or two posts that might need to be replaced.

I however think if your are smart, to have your web hosting provider like Hostgator to keep backups.   That is why I like Hostgator when the next time I have a problem with my SQL database it will be backed up with Hostgator and all is good!

If you don’t have a backup, you should start backing up and if you have a back up then you need to come up with a good restoration plan for when you need it.   I’ve begun to do that with this site and I hope this helps others with the problem I have had!

Paul Sylvester

Related articles

Deciding the need for a Full backup or backing up your important files

Paul

This weekend I talked about Backups on the [intlink id=”3455″ type=”post”]Mike Tech Show listener Round table[/intlink], and I heard from one or two people saying you can’t do a full backup with Allwaysync, and to a point that is true but I really don’t need a full back and some have said the program is only good for Synchronization and not backup.

I could debate that last point because what is a backup?  Wikipedia defines it as “backup refers to making copies of data so that these additional copies may be used to restore the original after a data loss event”.   So backing up and Synchronizing are essentially the same thing.  Some users will argue that it is getting every file on your hard drive but I don’t think so.   I however will tell you that Most files on your hard drive don’t need to be copied.   Due to the fact that if you get a complete backup of your windows directory you will most ly end up where you left off, Viruses or some file that corrupt.   I don’t make copies of the windows for that one reason, I have all OEM systems and don’t need to worry about the Windows because when I do a system restore, I get my system back to the Factory default.

With Vista you have some data that is never put in Windows system, like your email settings and other such important date.  This is usually put in the Application Data directory, which is usally “[DRIVE]\USERS\[USERNAME]\AppData” . To get to the directory in Vista just type “%APPDATA%” in the Vista search bar and hit enter.  So I tell Allwaysync to copy everything in that directory including subdirectories.  This is where my configuration files are put for each and every program I install or run!!

People will also argue that you need to compress the data or use a Proprietary software to backup your hard drive, although this can be useful.  The more complicated the process the more chance there is for failure.  My dad always told me to keep it simple.  The simplest is usually the best in my opinion.  If I were to need to backup data, I do not need any program to get to it.   This is how I like it, plus if the drive starts to go bad you have more time to move the data off the backup drive because of moving parts and the magnetic properties could change the compress file just one bit and you would not be able to access the programs inside of it.

I also have a 500 gig external backup drive for use with keeping my data backed up, which my two laptops only use 380 if I back up all of my hard drive space but in my case my data drive is usually just used a safegaurd if I did need to do a restore on the road.  I’d still have my important programs ready to re-install and restoring my configuration files.  I wouldn’t be in the dark if I had to restore on the road.  This is how I keep my important safe.  I use:

  • [intlink id=”3059″ type=”post”]My A600 Broad Band Sd Card[/intlink] — Passwords and such on it

  • My External hard drive —  Important Software and important files

  • Mozy Free 2 Gig – I use this also to put my Passwords and my configuration files here.  It’s free but you can pay 4.95 a month for unlimited.  I like it and it works really well.

  • My spouses computer – We keep our important passwords on each other computer just in case we are on the road with one laptop we can always have access to the passwords for each of our accounts.

This has worked for me for quite some time but this isn’t for everyone, some require the compression on the hard drive and that is fine but I don’t.  I hope this clears it up on what I said on the Mike Tech show.  I did however make a mistake.  This software is not bit by bit coping it is however a file by file copy.   That was my fault and no others.  I’m only human.  Hope you understand.

Miketechshow Listener Roundtable : #242 Backups

Paul

We had a great time talking about backing up our system. On a side note, I’d like to tell people that During the Round table, I was restoring my system due to a major network issue. The system wouldn’t stay connected at all to my network or my [intlink id=”3059″ type=”post”]USB A600 Cricket Modem[/intlink].  I used the A600 Modem during the podcast [intlink id=”2601″ type=”post”]with Skype[/intlink], so the quality isn’t as good as it should but that is due to two different factors.  One I had a cheap headset and two the bandwidth limitations.  This however shows that this is possible and works really well.  I also used the [intlink id=”3387″ type=”post”]Antenna[/intlink] for the Skype meeting.   It actually seems like a stable connection.   Although Mike has told us in his email this might be the last Round Table, so if you want this to continue you can either email him or twitter him telling him you want to keep seeing these podcasts.  I also talk about [intlink id=”2646″ type=”post”]Roboform[/intlink] and how I make sure the passwords are backed up.   We did talk about making sure to test our backups, so we know if the backup process works.   I have to say my backup procedure was without doubt working for me.   Even though I had some issues with Vista security updates after the restore, my restore to laptop didn’t take more than an hour to get the programs that I wanted back on the system.
Mike Tech Show Listener Roundtable #242 Backups

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Warning Signs of Hard Drive Trouble

Paul

For every computer there comes a time when you have a problem with hardware or software. This is for those who want to learn the signs of possible fixes for having hard drive problems. Although if you know you’re hard drive is dieing then you better back it up as quickly as possible. You will of course need to get the back up software to protect your data.  If you have special drivers you will need to backup yours drivers.  If you have an OEM system then you will need to backup the Hidden Partition.

So what are the warning signs of a hard drive failure:

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  • Unexpected freezing of Windows — When Windows Locks up and you have to reboot or getting a Blue Screen of Death.   You have no choice but to restart because you can’t do anything with windows.

  • Losing data files — if you seem to see files being lost or deleted without your direct input.  It might be a sign of a computer virus or it could be a damaged hard drive.

  • Locking up during boot — this is most common when you have a hard drive failure, although if you can restart and not be a problem then just keep in mind that it might be the beginning.  The more frequent you have the lockup boot problems the more chance of the hard drive dieing.

  • Hard drive isn’t recognized in BIOS– Although this can be a old hard drive, if the bios can’t see it then the problem might be a hard drive failure, usually this is meaning you just have to replace the hard drive.  there’s isn’t much you can do with this problem, just replace the hard drive.  Most of the time it is a problem inside the Hard drive bios and you really can’t fix this, you’d have to send it off to possibly save the hard drive data.

  • Clicking, Scratching, Whirling, Grinding sounds from Hard drive — This is the most dangerous signs of hard drive failure and means you need to get your data off ASAP.  If you want to hear some of the waring sounds of a dieing hard drive click here.

Although some of these can or can not be a hard drive failure, some can be driver issure or disk defragmentation and should be check out to rule out these problems.   There can be several problems that might be easily fixed.  If you think it is a failure you might try Spinrite.  The program is made by Steve Gibson and he actually has a “Absolute Satisfaction Guarantee“.  So if it doesn’t work or your not satisfied you aren’t out any money.  I’ve used this in the past for hard drives that are dieing so I could get all the important data off before it died all together.  It is essential that if you can get it working for a short time to get a backup.

Disclaimer: Although spinrite might fix some of the problems associated with a hard drive failure, it might not fix all the problems or any problems.   So it is left up to the user to decide if it is worth it or not to buy it.   I don’t recommend this for every situation or every problem only for the off chance that it might let you get the important data off the computer before you lose it.  Use at your own risk.