It Is Very Important To Backup Your System With So Many Computer Viruses Today

  I thought it would be very important to talk about backing up your windows 7 operating systems with so many computer viruses going around. I have seen too many times where a system has been infected with a virus and it has totally corrupted the system so it does not run properly. Even after running various repairs and cleaning the system it still does not function properly. Especially with viruses such as the Cryptolocker Virus. All data with this one is generally gone. The only course of action is to wipe and reload the operating system, drivers, updates and other peripherals.
  So many times I encounter friends as well as other people who have no idea on how to back up their computer. The first thing is to understand what it means to back up your computer. The back up and restore program in windows 7 can be found in the control panel. It is usually in the top row of icons. This program will make a complete image of your hard drive exactly as it is. It will also back up all of your documents, folders and data.
  You will need to have an external hard drive so the the data can back up to it. I would suggest that you have an external hard drive with 1 terabyte to at least 3 terabytes of space. External hard drives in this size range are not as expensive as they were when they first came out a few years ago. I would expect to spend somewhere between $95 to $135 dollars. These can easily be bought online through Amazon or Ebay. There are a lot of resellers on the internet so just be aware of where you purchase it. Always check reviews on the person or place it is coming from. I would also check reviews on the name brand that you purchase. Generally brands such as Western Digital and Seagate are good brands to stick with. Some external hard drives can be the size of a laptop hard drive or some can be the size of a standard sata hard drive.
  One thing I would stress if you buy from your local computer store make sure the package is sealed properly. I have seen instances where a place of business has used a drive in their repair department to save data on and then wiped it out and placed it back on the shelf when they were done. If I found this out I would never do business with any company using such tactics. I have also seen companies selling items such as memory or hard drives where they use no esd protection and they place a sticker on the open pc board right across the components. Basically the component may be damaged and will fail at some point while out in the field. Stay away from places that use this type of approach in their business practices. Make sure exposed pc boards are in static bags and handled properly. Some times you can take a tour of a company. Be aware of how things are placed on benches. Are they on static mats that are actually grounded and are the technicians wearing static wrist straps when handling exposed pc boards whether it is a memory stick, hard drive, motherboard or any pc card.
  Okay back to the back and restore in windows 7. DO NOT BACK UP YOUR SYSTEM TO THE RECOVERY PARTITION OR THE DATA PARTITION. It is usually too small for the large amount of data you will be backing up. Connect your external hard drive and pay attention to what drive letter it has. Double click the back up and restore icon. Choose to let windows run the program. You can set it for a schedule with a certain day and time. Just make sure your computer is on at the time. It will initially run the first back up and tell you it was successful. By default it will be set at Sunday at &PM. You can change this setting to whatever you prefer. It will also indicate when the next back up is scheduled to run. Just be aware that it may take awhile for it to run.
  If you ever have to use the back up to restore your computer you will have a few steps to perform first. For example if your hard drive suddenly failed. You would install the new hard drive in the computer. Next you will need to reinstall the windows 7 operating software, install drivers for the system and activate windows 7 using the product license number. It is usually on the bottom of the laptop or on the back, top or one of the sides of the desktop computer. Most manufactures with windows 7 are placing the product license key number under the battery in most laptop computers. You would then connect your external hard drive and the system will recognize it. Next go to the back up and restore in the control panel. You will see a choice to recover your system. Run that and follow what it tells you to do. I have run this at least two to three times on customers computers and it has worked every time. Just make sure your back up is kept up to date.
  Thank You for reading and remember Backup, Backup and Backup and Stay Safe.