Recover from Anything! Take a picture of the Hard-Drive!

You can have a safety net in case anything ever happens to your computer.  In the next few weeks a new feature will be available at the Napa Valley Security Consulting Web-site.  This feature is software called  “Image for Windows (IFW) & Image for DOS (IFD)” that takes a “snapshot” of the hard-drive and a detailed step-by-step instructional guide that will make using this software easier.  So, ask yourself what would you do if any of the following happened to your computer?;

• A brand new Malware (Virus) slips through the security of the computer and corrupts a key operating file making the computer stop functioning.
• A Windows Update or new Software install interferes with a key piece of software and you have a deadline within 24 hours if not the same day.
• An important Software Application does an update and you do not like the change or it stops working.
• The Hard-Drive crashes.
• A Guest, your child, a co-worker or even yourself downloads a malicious file unknowingly, deletes a critical file, or other activity that ends up “destroying” or impairing the computer.
• You have your computer running “just right” and a new change makes it run like a rabbit through quicksand and you do not know what to do.
• OR, you wish you could save and return your computer to that “just right” state as needed.

One of the above may sound familiar and you can!  The solution is an ISO Image of the computer hard-drive.  To explain how it works, imagine you were living in New Orleans and you took a picture (image) of the city, in detail, right before Katrina hit.  And after the damage occurred you used this image overwriting everything and restoring the city to be as when the image was created.  This is what an ISO Image does for the computer by capturing a picture of the hard-drive at an instant in time.  It works because the computer is composed of ONES and ZEROS and as the computer changes these ONES and ZEROS are written to the hard-drive in different sequences.  Thus, if one of the above situations damages the computer’s operation, even to the point it will not boot up (start), this image can be restored to the original hard-drive or a new hard-drive completely erasing the damage!  And, if you need to extract individual or multiple files from the ISO Image, without restoring the total image to the hard-drive, no problem.

This can be for personal use and to a small business a life saver, time saver and money saver.  The process is first to create the image, store it and when the “glitch” occurs instead of tearing your hair out or paying for hours of computer services you just restore the image to the hard-drive.  You may have one question; “what happens to files that are created or modified after the ISO Image is created?”  Good question!  You have many options but here are two to start;

1. Create a differential backup ISO Image at regular intervals.  You can even set this up to work automatically and the neat thing is there is no need to remember what files have changed!  This procedure takes a previously generated FULL ISO Image and compares all changes from its time of creation and makes a “difference” or differential backup ISO Image.  Thus, any new files or modified files are recorded.  And, since each differential backup only looks at the original FULL ISO Image you’ll get versions of files.  This means you can either restore the differential ISO Image to have the computer operating as it was that day or extract a particular file to how it appeared on the date the differential backup occurred.  Overtime as more changes are made on the computer the size of each differential backup will grow.  Once, it gets too big, create a new FULL ISO Image for the reference and subsequent differential backup will be smaller in size.  [Note:  Differential backups rely on their original FULL ISO Image so be sure to keep these files together.]



2. Copy newly created files or modified files on a regular basis to a memory device such as a USB drive.  If you are not sure how to do this detailed instructions are provided in Section 4 of the Book.  As an example; let’s say you use a program called “Toy Management” everyday.  You can save its data via a Left-Click on File and a Left-Click on Backup allowing you to choose a location to create the backup file.  So, you save this backup file to a USB drive which you safely store.  At a future time if there is a computer glitch use the FULL ISO Image to recover the computer.  Next, you would start the “Toy Management” software, Left-Click File, Left-Click its restore to use the backup file of the data.  The computer is running again and the software you need has the latest data to use.

As you can see this ability will bring tremendous piece of mind.  If you find this helpful please pass this on to anyone else who could benefit from it.