Backing up data regularly should be one of the main priorities to avoid data loss. Many users feel that it is not necessary to backup their data regularly as they feel that the process is complicated and time consuming. The need usually arises after losing data because of a hard drive crash or deletion. Getting partial data back might succeed with the right tools but a hard drive crash usually means that at least some of the data is lost for good.

DriveImage XML is a free for non-commercial use software that can backup entire drives to image files. A drive is any device on the computer with its own drive letter that can store data. The backup tool provides additional means to copy data directly from one drive to another with is excellent when moving from an older hard drive to a newer one.

The software will display all options in its main interface after installation:
• Backup drives to image files
• Browse previously created image files
• Restore image files to the same or another hard drive
• Copy a drive to another drive
• Schedule automatic backups

The only prerequisite is enough hard drive space to store the drive images that are created in the process. A good choice (if the internal hard drives do not have enough free space) would be to purchase an external hard drive for that purpose and connect the drive to the computer whenever a backup has to be created.

A click on Backup will initiate a scan of the computer’s drives which are displayed afterwards on a new screen. The drive letters, file system, capacity and used space are displayed which should make it easy to determine the drive that should be backed up and the drive that can store the backup image. Read the rest of this entry »

A couple of weeks ago I got up and as usual turned on my lap in order to start working. I had been working for several days on a huge translation, having completed half of it, so I pressed the on/off button confidently, eager to finish my job when the worst happened… no sound, no light, no…anything…I spent five minutes in a sea of despair trying to recall how many things I had lost, specially half of the job I had to hand in the following day…

Fortunately, once I recovered rationality, I could notice that it was nothing serious, that the battery had run out and I just had to plug the machine…but those minutes helped me understand how important is all the info I have stored in my lap and how terrible it would be to lose everything overnight.

I confess that this is something I had never thought of…shame on me! But after experienced such a distressed situation, I immediately started to browse the web in search of a tool that may help me be safe from the risk of total loss.

And I found the solution in FileStream TurboBackup, a powerful backup tool that allows me make backup copies of the most important elements in my PC, such as Internet favorites, calendar, Outlook contacts, photos, music and documents and settings from the main system.

You decide what to do with the files from the backup: store them on disk, burn them onto a CD / DVD, upload them to an FTP server, and so on. TurboBackup also allows you to schedule the execution of the backups. The schedule indicates what is of most interest for you, and the actions will be performed accordingly. Read the rest of this entry »