Talk on Mirrored System Disk Backups, Backups to the Cloud - iDrive, and Dropbox on Feb 16, 2012, Kinnelon Public Library, NJ -- see the Working Computers Blog Articles: http://www.kinneloncomputers.com/2012/02/talk-how-to-take-care-of-your-computer.html and: http://www.kinneloncomputers.com/2012/02/taking-care-of-your-computer-for-free.html

1. How To Take Care of Your
Computer
for Little or No Money
3 Part Series
Part 2 – How To Make a Bootable Clone of Your System Disk
– Backup Critical Files for Free On-Line
– Question and Answer Session
Ted Whittemore
The Working Computers Blog & Kinnelon Computers
www.kinneloncomputers.com

2. Who is Ted Whittemore?
• Owner of Working Computers and the
Working Computers Blog
• Has worked in computer services industry
since 1987 building, servicing, and selling
computer systems, software and
maintenance

3. www.kinneloncomputers.com/

4. What’s the Plan for today?
• Discuss backing up your computer and
making bootable disk copies
• Show you how to verify your disk copies
• Backup Critical Data Freely On-Line
• Answer questions and solve problems
*All of the subjects covered are also in
articles in the Working Computers Blog,
@ www.kinneloncomputers.com

5. Before We Deal With These Issues
• Feel free to ask specific questions
about the topic we are covering
• Please save general questions for the
end

6. Mirroring or Cloning vs Traditional
Archival Backup
• Traditional Backup Saves Files in Lists with a
database directory for Restore
• Mirror Cloning makes an exact Bootable Copy of
Your Primary OS Disk (and any other disks)
• Why do you Care which You Have?
• If Your Drive or Computer Fails – You Can
Reboot Your Computer or an exact
Replacement with a Mirror Backup
• If you have an Archival Backup, You Can’t

7. Free Cloning Software
• All of the following work well and can
be downloaded at the links provided:
• Acronis for Seagate/Maxtor Hard Drives
• Acronis for Western Digital Hard Drives
• Keriver 1 Click Restore
• Drive Image XML
• Paragon Backup and Recovery
• O&O Diskimage 4 Express

8. Commercial Software
1. Most of the Free Software above has a
Commercial Counterpart with added
functionality
2. Casper 7.0 from Future Systems which is a
simple & automatic drive cloning and
partition repair utility with very robust error
checking, verification, and equipment
problem detection, that costs about $50

9. Features of Casper 7.0
• Casper is a Dedicated Disk Cloning program -- it does
not do Archival Backups
• Casper does do incremental Backups as an Image – that
is, it rewrites the bits and bytes required
• Casper and All Disk Cloning programs are Destructive –
they delete the old image before they write the new
image
• Casper will resize the disk image to fit the disk target,
within available space
• Casper will make Clones to internal disks and external
disks, incl. Sata, eSata, and USB, incl. USB 3

10. Running Casper 7
• You need an additional disk at least as large as the used
disk space of the disk to be cloned.
• If external the disk needs to be connected with a dock or
a case that allows the drive to talk to the computer
• Casper will automatically recognize a new disk and ask
you if the new disk should be a backup drive.
• If yes, you can follow the prompts to setup and use the
drive for automatic backup on schedule
• If no, you can manually setup any attached drive to
backup an other drive of choice on a daily, weekly, or
any other schedule.
• Take a look at the following screens:

11. Casper Screens
This is the Main Casper 7 Screen

12. Casper 7 Screens
You are not going to be able to read this so …

13. The One Downside of Clone
Backups
• Destructive Install
• What Can You Do About It?
• Either Don’t Worry About It, or
• Make a 2nd Backup to a 2nd Disk

14. What Equipment Do I? Need?
• A Hard Drive Like This One:

15. And If You Want The Drive
External:
An External Docking Station:

16. So Then --You Have a Backup
• If your Boot Drive Fails You Can:
• Boot from Your External Disk or Secondary
Internal Disk by Depressing the F8 Key on Boot
or Reboot before the Dell, HP or other Logo
appears and Choose
• Or Set Your BIOS to Boot from the External
Disk, which you enter with the F2 or DEL Key on
Boot
• Do Teach Yourself or Have Someone Teach
You How to Do This, So You Will Know How if
You Need To

17. What If My Computer Dies?
• Can I just get a new computer and boot from a Cloned Backup
Hard Drive?
• Only if you get almost exactly the same computer. The drivers
and machine specific code will not work with another computer.
• Can I restore somehow to a new computer?
• Yes!
• There is commercial software from Laplink called PC Mover Image
Assistant that will upgrade from an older Windows XP, Vista, or 7
bootable system disk to a new system’s as shipped disk.
• Just connect the old disk via USB 2 or higher, Sata or eSata to the
new computer, go to Laplink’s PC Mover page and purchase the
software for $40, download and install it, and it will allow you to
move all of your applications, data, files, passwords and
settings to the new computer!

18. iDrive – Backup to the Cloud
• Backup up to 5 GB of files of your Choice to the iDrive
Cloud daily and automatically for free
• Restore to any machine anywhere, anytime with your
Username and Password

19. Choose Your Files and Schedule

20. Why Backup to the Cloud is a Good Thing
• Offsite -- You Can’t Burn it Down or Lose It
• Your Most Critical Files – The Ones You Do
Not Want To Lose
• You Can Restore Anyplace to Any Computer,
Anytime

21. What Are Your Cloud Backup Choices?
Here are a Few:
• iDrive – www.iDrive.com
• Mozy -- http://mozy.com/home/free
• Windows Live Mesh --
//explore.live.com/windows-live-
essentials-other-programs?T1=t4
• Dropbox – www.dropbox.com

22. Dropbox
• Dropbox functions like a normal directory
in your personal filesystem, but, when you
put files into it, up to 2 GB free …
• The files are shared automatically with all
of the computers linked to that directory on
your account.
• You can share publically as well.

23. Take a look at my Dropbox Folder

24. Take a Look at My Dropbox Public Folder
• Right-Clicking on a file in the Public Folder generates a
donwloadable link like the one below
• dl.dropbox.com/u/56962380/mbam-consumer.exe

25. What is in My Folders???
• Presentations for These Library Talks
– I worked on them on my home computer
– Saved Them to My Dropbox Folder
– Which is Linked to My Wife’s Laptop --
• The Laptop You See in Front of Me Now
– Therefore Has My Presentation in it
Automatically --
• And I Am Running It for You Now:
– How About That?

26. How Can You Use DropBox ?
• Automatically Save Documents to Other Computers
• Share Documents with Colleagues or Friends
•Save Files to the DropBox Website
•Share Files to Your Smarphone – iPhone or Android
•Never Lose and Important File Again!!!

27. Backup Strategies – Belt and
Suspender
• Use all 3 Recommended Backup Tools,
since they all address different problems
• Use an Archival Backup System as
well, such as the one that comes with
Windows – It Can’t Hurt!
• Set Them to Run Automatically
• Check Them Once a Month or so To
Make Sure They Are Working

28. Summary
• This Presentation and all links will be up on the
Working Computers Blog shortly – you do not
need to take notes if you don’t want to.
• These Topics and a lot more are covered on the
Working Computers site, along with links to
software and sites for easy downloading.
• Remember, it’s all at
www.kinneloncomputers.com

29. Questions??

30. Please Assess Seminar
• There are Assessment Sheets for this talk
available on the table, and I should have
already handed them out – Please take a
moment to tell us what you think and give
us any suggestions you may have.
• Thanks!

31. www.kinneloncomputers.com/

32. Contact Information
• Ted Whittemore
– Working Computers in Kinnelon, NJ
– http://www.KinnelonComputers.com
– 973-838-2368
– Ted@amgpi.com