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what is a hard drive

In this article I want to explain one general method for how to back up your computer.  I won’t go into the large number of reasons why it is absolutely essential that you back up on a regular basis, but I'll give you some choices on methods you can protect your data, including details for both Microsoft Windows and Apple Macintosh computers.

For starters let’s define “cloning” backups.

Cloning refers to making an exact 100% copy of your computer's hard drive, usually to a different internal hard drive, or preferably, an external hard drive which is stored powered off except when the backup process. This is done which helps to minimize wear and tear and keep it more reliable.

When done correctly, when you clone your computer’s hard disc, the clone will be "bootable",i.e., you can start your computer from that drive in just the same way you normally start up from your computer’s main drive.

You get to save money and time without a working computer when you use a bootable backup drive. In some cases, you'll be able to start your computer up from the external drive and you'll literally be up and running again in a minute or two. 

Starting your computer up from the backup drive like this isn't only temporary. But if you’re waiting for a new drive or you're trying to get an appointment with a computer tech to swap out the bad drive after it breaks down you can at least still be productive in the mean time and everything will be exactly the way it was as of the last time you duplicated the drive.

Cloning your drive in this way can also save you money by minimizing the time spent by a technician repairing your Mac or PC.  In many cases the tech can simply take the external hard drive out of the case and put it into the computer in place of a bad hard drive, then put the new replacement drive into the external case.

This can take as little as 5-10 minutes to get you back going again, as opposed to potentially hours of time.

There are frustratingly few options for those Windows users who want to protect themselves by cloning their drives. Just about any computer can do this, not just Apple's Macs.

We've discovered a couple of programs that will dupe your hard drive like this for Windows, both of them are free (you should know there are a couple of caveats on this which we can explain shortly).

The first Windows program, which makes a 100% "cloned" copies is a program named XXClone.  This is a 100% free program which does a good job one which I use myself}.  The single problem with this program is that it only works correctly on Windows XP -- it's unfortunately not compatible with Windows Vista or Windows 7. Googling XXClone will give you a download link.

A second choice for Windows users that does seem to work with any version of Windows is Seagate DiscWizard (formerly Maxtor MaxBlast).You can do a Google search for Discwizard download to grab a copy for free.

The one little hitch to this is that for you to use it, it does require at least one of your hard drives to be either a Seagate or Maxtor brand drive - either works because Seagate bought Maxtor some time ago..

On the Apple Mac side of things people have a few options, the main two being something called "SuperDuper" -- and another one called Carbon Copy Cloner. SuperDuper is inexpensive, CCC is free (but appreciates donations).

Both are good to use, but I've been using Carbon Copy Cloner for around a decade now as my first method of backup and so it's what I recommend to my clients. Both programs work in the same basic way, so pretty much whatever I say about one goes for the other.

Unlike Seagate Discwizard on Windows, CCC does not need any specific brand of hard drive, and unlike XXClone -- which only works properly with one version of Windows -- should work with just about any modern Mac.

On either kind of computer, the time it takes to finish backing up varies a lot depending on how much you have on your hard drive, and what type of connector (USB, Firewire, eSATA) you're using for the external drive. To do a full backup it can take anywhere from thirty minutes to several hours in extreme cases. But that would mainly be on computers with extensive collections of movies, audio, or photos.

But if you do back up your computer this way, you have a backup that really can save you cash and stress when the unavoidable occurs. Empowering yourself with some computer lessons can be a huge help too.