NOVEMBER 1996
It's summer now and almost every afternoon produces a thunder storm somewhere in the northern New Mexico power grid. A lightning strike anywhere in the region can cause a power surge down YOUR lines and can adversely impact YOUR PC and the data stored on it. Loss of data is a significant worry, but it is a situation you can prepare for.
You might have your own tape backup unit, you might backup to floppies, or perhaps you have a backup service come to your site regularly. However you backup your data, it is important to understand how your backups are generated so that you can restore your programs and data from the backup media.
Generally I suggest you perform a weekly FULL BACKUP (on Sunday or Monday) and a daily INCREMENTAL BACKUP the rest of the week. The 2nd week you archive the previous week's backup set, and begin another set. The 3rd week, you format the media used during the first week, and use it again for the current week. This way you will have at least 1 extra week of backups available to restore from. If you can afford the media costs, have 3 or 4 sets on hand to use in succession.
At worst case, should your hard drive crash on a Saturday, you need only restore the full backup from last Sunday or Monday, and each day's incremental. Restoring 6 or perhaps 7 backup sets isn't that bad a chore. And if this current set is unfortunately unrestorable, you can use the backup set from the week before (you did save it didn't you?).
Now, where are you storing your backups? Most individuals and businesses will store the critical backup media in the same building as the PC itself. But - what if you or your neighbor catch on fire? Or you get burgled? Or a spring dust-storm invades your office? Your insurance should replace the PC, however your backups could easily be smoke, dust or water damaged. You should consider an off-site storage place for your backups.
One last consideration - Windows95 requires backup software written especially for Windows95. Using the incorrect backup software will cause your Windows95 environment not to be restored!