Talira:
While the XP operating system does include a backup utility, it's neither
very user-friendly nor very good as a comprehensive backup program. You
really should consider a third-party backup program such as the Acronis
True Image program suggested by Ken Blake. It's especially crucial for you
to have a comprehensive backup program since you're running a business and
the data on your day-to-day working hard drive (HDD) is obviously vital to
you.
So...
A disk cloning/disk imaging program such as the mentioned Acronis True
Image can be used in routine fashion to "clone" the contents of your
internal HDD to your USB 500 GB external HDD. In that way you would have,
for all practical purposes, an exact duplicate of your source drive (your
day-to-day working HDD) including the operating system, your
programs/applications, and all your user-created data. What better backup
system can one have?
So that in the event your internal HDD was no longer usable because it
became defective or the operating system became so corrupt that the drive
would be dysfunctional, you could clone the contents of your USBEHD back
to that internal HDD (assuming it was mechanically/electronically
non-defective) or a new HDD should it be needed. Thus, you entire system
would be restored to its former functional state.
By & large these disk imaging programs when employed for basic
disk-to-disk cloning purposes are relatively simple & straightforward to
use and they're quite effective in maintaining a near-failsafe backup
system.
The disk-cloning program that we prefer is the Casper 4.0 program
(
http://www.fssdev.com/products/casper/trial/). It's extremely simple to
use even for an inexperienced user, reasonably quick in operation, and
quite effective. There's virtually no learning curve in undertaking the
disk cloning process as one navigates through the few easy-to-understand
screens with a final mouse-click on the button on the screen which will
trigger the disk-cloning process. After undertaking one or two
disk-cloning operations it should take the user no more than 20 seconds or
so to get to that point.
The Casper 4.0 program is also capable of scheduling the disk-cloning
process on a daily, weekly, or other time period selected by the user so
that you could arrange for automatic backups at pre-determined times.
There's a trial version available (see above link) although it's somewhat
crippled but it will give you a good idea as to how the program works. And
I can provide further details about the program should you be interested.
The Acronis program also has a trial version available, so take a look at
that one also at
http://www.acronis.com.
In any event, give a disk-cloning program some serious consideration.
Anna
