A client called recently to say that their PC hard disk had crashed. We assisted where possible with passwords and some server side email data caches, however the damage was done. It prompted this reminder to backup regularly and save yourself this inconvenience.

When backing up, a common mistake is to take a copy of your “My Documents” but forget about your browser bookmarks and all those “remembered” passwords. Even in a corporate environment with a system administrator doing backups, you can save a lot of pain and hassle by archiving the essentials yourself.

A quick backup

If you do nothing else, grab a memory stick (less than $50), create a folder named with today’s date on it, and drag the following in:

Bookmarks (IE: right-click “Start”, go up one level, copy “Favorites”; Firefox: Bookmarks / Organize Bookmarks / File / Export)

Passwords – if you don’t have an encrypted password manager, grab one! (free, download.com) – backup it’s database

Email – all your emails are in a single file, archive this (Outlook: File / Archive / Browse, note the folder location and copy the file(s) in it)

“My Documents” (make sure you regularly clean out the dross to stop this getting oversize)

The cost
It’s hard to measure the real cost of having no recent backup. It isn’t just the loss of obvious things such as financial data or records, but also the time involved in re-installing the base software on your computer and re-configuring your environment. If you don’t already have one, put in place a backup strategy today. Do it before a problem occurs or tomorrow could be too late!