Bryan C. Fleming

I did the dumbest thing in the world yesterday. It was so stupid I’m almost embarrassed to mention it. You see, after work I always carry my laptop and gym bag out to my car. I always put it in the trunk and go home.

Well, yesterday I got distracted by a co-worker and set my laptop down by the side of my car. Without thinking about it I drove off. Yep, just left the laptop sitting there with the gym bag right in the middle of the parking lot.

By the time I realized what I did I was already home (which is an hour away). So, I called security in a last ditch effort to see if the bags were just sitting out in the parking lot.

Nope, they were gone……..

Well, the story does have a happy ending. Someone saw them and dropped them off to security the next day. But, it really got me thinking about how screwed I’d be if I really did loose my laptop. I don’t think I’m alone here.

So, I’m going to write a few part article about how to first keep your s&*t backed up. Then I’ll talk about how to use a backup to totally restore windows on to a new computer.

Keep in mind Windows XP has a ‘files and settings transfer’ feature, but it won’t move all the software you have installed on your computer. Copying files won’t work either because there are countless windows registry settings that must be set (your software installers do this all for you). If you’re like me, much of the stuff you have can’t easily be tracked down so moving your old copies of windows to a new machine is by far the best way to go.
Look tomorrow for my next post called ‘The Poor-Man’s Back Up System’. I use this personally and it totally rocks.

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