Back up your files now, before its too late...
To sum it up: Yes, it is. Due to a lot of factors.
* One important factor is that, although usually reliable, you can never tell when your hard disk will die. Just like earthquakes, hard disk failures are unpredictable, one day your computer will boot just fine, the next you will see the dreaded message:
When you see the dreaded error message, you'd wish you've backed up your data, or if you are more computer savvy, saved an image of your hard drive, as you will almost always need to replace the drive since it will no longer be reliable.
* Another factor is the tendency of Windows to crash when least expected. Don't get me wrong, I like Windows and I have seen a lot of improvements in terms of stability when I first used Windows 3.11 Workgroups, then going to Windows 98 SE, to Windows 2000 Service Pack 4, the to Windows XP Service Pack 3. I've noticed few instances of BSOD and crashed when I applied SP2 and SP3 on my PC.
But let's face it, Windows is Windows. And Windows is also synonymous to crashes and the blue screen of death (BSOD).
And, although, there's a workaround, the worst Windows crash is the reboot loop, where you will see the Windows XP logo, then you computer will boot again, and again, and again. When this happens most people will have no choice but to reinstall the OS.
* All your pics, videos, music, drivers, documents and even Windows settings are copied to a safe location. You will usually use another hard disk or a DVD to copy or burn your files. So even if the hard disk will die, you will not lose any of these irreplaceable treasures.
* When you are upgrading the hard-disk of your computer, you can just create a disk image of the original hard-disk and then migrate that disk image onto the new drive. You don't have to undergo the painful process of reinstalling the OS, all the software or migrating the documents from one hard-disk to another. It's all done by the disk imaging software.
Now, which would work for you, to backup your files or to image your hard drive?
That depends.
If you will just need to save you pics, videos, music and documents, its a simple as copy all your files to another hard disk or burning them to a DVD.
Or you can use the Windows Backup that comes with XP. Can't find it? You may need to manually install it using your Win XP CD. Here's how:
1. Insert the XP CD Rom and navigate to CD-ROM Drive:\VALUEADD\MSFT\NTBACKUP
2. Double-click the Ntbackup.msi file to start the wizard that installs Backup
3. When the wizard is complete, click Finish
Now, if you're like me, who had done a lot of tweaking on Win XP and wants to preserve the settings, you will need to image your entire drive to include the system files, you can then use the image a later time to restore your entire system to the exact same state when you created the image.
My system right now boots within 45 seconds to a minute, from the time that I press the On button to seeing the Win XP desktop with background programs already loaded. That's fast and I like it that way. I've tweaked my system with the help of PCStats and TweakGuide. Check them out.
I am ashamed to say that I am currently using Acronis True Image to image my entire hard drive (pirated? I will not answer a question that will be incriminating). I suits my purpose because it allows me to easily image my drive or backup specific folders, it allows me to create a boot disk that I can use, in case my system files needs restoring, and it allows me to browse the image and restore specific files.
And just for fun, I imaged my entire C: drive, burned the image on a DVD and tried restoring it using the boot disk. It worked like a charm.
But if I have the time to review them all, I would prefer to use a free drive imaging software. Some of the more notable ones are:
DriveImage XML - Freeware and still feature rich disk backup and recovery software, it even lets you schedule the disc backup tasks.
HD Clone - The HDClone Free Edition supports IDE/ATA/SATA hard disks and is intended for home users.
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