Arlene's got an external hard drive - now what should she back up?
I finally bought a 250 GB external hard drive to use for backing up my computer. Now that I've got it, what do I back up? A silly question? Not for a novice. I haven't a clue.

Our Answer
There's no such thing as a silly question, Arlene.

It's essential that you a mirror image backup (hard drive clone) of your Windows drive (usually C:\). It's the only kind of backup that can restore everything - including your operating system - if the worst happens. Mirror-image backups (or hard drive cloning) are very easy to do if you have the right software. And we happen to know of a free program that creates mirror-image backups and is also exceptionally easy-to-use and full of great features. It's called Paragon Backup - it's as easy to use as a mirror-image backup program can be, plus it comes with excellent tutorials and help files. If you make and maintain a full, mirror-image backup, you can restore your computer to exactly the same state it was in before catastrophe struck. If you have a full, mirror-image backup, you won't even have to reinstall Windows or any programs at all. Restoring your computer with a mirror-image backup means that all will be exactly as it was before disaster struck.

Once you make a full mirror-image backup, Paragon will keep your backup up-to-date by incrementally backing up only the files which have changed or added since the previous backup session.  If you should ever need to restore your entire hard drive - you can use the boot disk (CD) you create when you first start using Paragon to boot your PC and restore you entire system. Since your computer boots from the CD, it could come in very handy should Windows fail to start or should your hard drive fail and you have to replace it with a new one.

Another interesting thing you can do with a hard drive clone is restore your operating system and all your programs and files to a a new hard drive. If your hard drive were to fail, you could install a new hard drive and then use Paragon to clone your old hard drive onto the new one. No reinstalling Windows or software, just boot from the CD you created with Paragon and follow the restore wizard. Y

Paragon is has plenty of "wizards" to walk you through a variety of tasks - but for now you should just be concerned with making a complete backup (clone) of your hard drive.

Here is a partial feature list from the Paragon Software Web site.

* Cyclic Backup - complete infrastructure for establishing a self-acting data protection system, fully compliant with the set-and-forget backup policy
* New Support for the latest hardware as well as hard disk partitioning schemes.
* New Support of all present day techniques to store backup images
* Disk backup to save not only all on-disk information but also the system service structures. It is ideal for making a backup image of an entire hard disk (including GPT-discs!) or system partitions to guarantee the operating system’s working capability
* Differential backup to a sector image to only archive changes since the last full sector-based image, thus considerably saving the backup storage space. To restore this kind of backup you will require a full image and one of its differentials

Restore Facilities

* Restore an entire disk, separate partitions image
* Restore with Shrink to restore a backup amount of actual data of the image
* Create bootable USB Flash drive, CD or DVD to recover your PC on demand

Advanced Backup Tasks

* Differential Partition Backup (Create a differential image of a partition)

Supplementary Tools

* Recovery Media Builder: builds a new "recovery media" to boot from in case of an unbootable system
* Check Recovery Discs: checks the recovery media for integrity and boot ability

User Friendly Fault Minimizing Interface

* Graphical representation of the data to gain a better understanding
* Comprehensive wizards to simplify even the most complex operations
* A context sensitive hint system for all functions of the program
* Previewing the resulting layout of hard disks before actually executing operations (so-called virtual operations)

Partitioning tools

* Create Partition
* Format Partition
* Delete Partition
* Assign/Remove Drive Letter
* Hide/Unhide Partition
* Mark Partition as Active/Inactive
* Modify: change volume label, Test Surface
* Check File System Integrity

Operations with Archives

* Add an archive to the database
* Delete the archive from the database
* Restore from the selected archive
* Restore File From Archive
* Differential backup
* Check Archive Integrity
* Mount/Unmount the archive

Get more information from http://www.paragon-software.com/home/db-express/ -- the program is awesome and completely free! You might want to skim through the help files, especially the ones concerning creating, maintaining, and using backups.