Rampant virus obliterates all data at midnight

birkee wrote: »

Is this a smug way of saying you've backed up?

No, it's a reminder for anyone who hasn't.

Some free backup solutions

If you have Windows7, disk imaging backup is built in, all you need is one blank dvd for the bootdvd, and an external usb hard disk big enough to hold the data


http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/1838/using-backup-and-restore-in-windows-7/ (should work on any W7 system)



for earlier operating systems - Xp, Vista (and W7).

http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.aspx (works on most systems, test the boot cd afterwards)

http://www.paragon-software.com/home/br-free/ (works on most systems, test the boot cd afterwards)

http://www.seagate.com/support/internal-hard-drives/enterprise-hard-drives/savvio-15k/discwizard-master-dl/
(works with systems with internal or external maxtor or seagate drives.

http://support.wdc.com/product/downloaddetail.asp?swid=119 (works on systems with western digital drives)



http://www.todo-backup.com/products/home/free-backup-software.htm

http://www.runtime.org/driveimage-xml.htm

http://www.runtime.org/shadow-copy.htm (not a drive imager as there is no bootcd, but an easy way to backup everything from a to b)

+ usb external hard drive, + tub of DVD's + a boot cd created from the disk imaging software

when using disk imaging software, make sure you create the bootcd as well, and test boot it, just to make sure it can see your external drive (so you know you can do a restore if you need to). bootcd's are usually based on linux, and may not boot on every system, which is why it needs to be tested before you need it.

also, burn a copy of the most important data to DVD's (using imgburn if you have no dvd writing software)