 They say it is not "if" your hard drive will fail, but it is "when" your hard drive will fail. Unfortunately, that small piece of equipment that holds all your computer programs and data is actually very frail.
Between lightning storms, dropped laptops, and failed hard drives, we've seen a lot of computers lately whose hard drives and data were trashed. Even in the best of cases where the computer user had diligently made of backup of their personal data or where we were able to restore the data from the failing hard drive, there is still a lot of work to be done to return the computer to good working order. In such cases you must purchase and install a new hard drive, then you must reinstall the operating system and all the programs, tweak your operating system and application settings, and then restore the data. If you are very computer literate, it can mean a weekend of work. If you are not well-versed in the inner workings of a computer, it will mean taking it to a computer expert for repair.
Would you like to save yourself all that time, trouble, and money?? An easy way to do that is to purchase a disk imaging program. Such a program makes an exact copy of your hard drive in a format that can be used to reinstall everything quickly and easily. It backs up your complete computer system, including your operating system, data and applications. Restoring everything takes minutes rather than hours or days.
Drive-imaging software can always restore your system to exactly the state it was in when you made the drive image. This can obviously be useful when your hard drive crashes, but it can also be useful when some program messes up your computer or when someone or something really screws up the system.
This is one place where you don't want to go with a free program because most of the free programs are made for real geeks and have complex interfaces. You will need to purchase a program that is easy to use and easy to understand. After looking at several programs including Paragon Drive Backup 8.5 , Norton Ghost 12, and ShadowProtect Desktop, my top choice is Acronis True Image Home 2009 PC Backup & Recovery
. This program can not only image your drive, but it gives you the ability to easily restore specific folders and settings. So you can use it to backup and restore your music, pictures, videos, email, financials, and other important documents. Acronis True Image 11 Home - Backup your files and the whole system, restore your data in minutes.
You can use the True Image software at any time to make a complete copy of your hard drive. It is best to purchase an external hard drive where you can keep the backup. Depending on how much you use your computer, you can then use the True Image program daily, several times a week or several times a month to make an incremental backup of files that have changed.
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A real market leader, Acronis True Image is the most comprehensive disaster recovery tool. The new ATI 11 allows you to easily back up and restore particular files and the whole PC. Your docs, music, photos, videos and e-mails will always be there!
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When disaster strikes, True Image will let you can get back to work quickly without searching for program disks or reinstalling software. It's a $49 insurance policy that no computer user should be without.
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