Backup Everything 

It takes time to get your computer setup to where everything works just the way you want it. Your browser with all your websites, passwords and screen login data. Your office suite with all your custom dictionary’s and custom settings. Your music player with all the playlists. All the updates since you installed your system. Why lose it and have to start over again. This is why you need to Backup Everything in case of a virus (if your using Windows) or the wrong click of a key. Sometimes you install a program and it goes wrong or just messes up your system and you just can’t get your system back to where it was before that install. It happens so Backup Everything.

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So what are you waiting for don’t get bit by not having a backup of your system.

  • Back up your data.

    • What if we had a hurricane, a fire or flood,and you lost everything, your computers (desktop, laptop), your smartphone, I mean everything.

    • Using services like Dropbox, Google Drive-Sync or SpiderOak to store your data to the cloud. This way if you computer gets liquid damage, physical damage or is lost or stolen your files can easily be recovered. Using cloud storage you can also access your data from your smartphone as well. You can also get 1 Terabyte of cloud storage for about $100.00 per year. Now you have the room to store all your image backups as well as all your data (documents, pictures and more).

    • You can also use other file syncing programs to backup your data to USB drives such as thumb drives or external USB hard drives.

    • You should also backup your data to a media like burnable DVD-R or Blu-Ray BD-R. You should keep at least 2 backups of your data. I personally keep 3 types of backups.

    • You should also make End of Year backups of all your data and put onto a media like DVD’s or Blu-Ray’s and keep for your records and for your taxes. If you ever get audit by the state or I.R.S. you have records.

    • Keep some of your backups in a water and fire proof safe or safety deposit box at your bank.

Here are some links to show you how to backup your Home Directory to a Image of your entire system. So even if you hard drive dies you can have your system back up in a flash right where it was when you made the backup.

Not going to reinvent the wheel so here are some links to other sites to show you how to use the following software!

Backup your Home Directory (or files)

Backup with DejaDup

Backup with Grsync

Backup your whole system with a Image file

Backup with Redo

Backup with Partclone Using Partclone

Backup with Clonezilla

Backup with Acronis True Image  Manuals  –  Click here to purchase True Image

Backup with Macrium don’t recommend!

With Redo, you have to boot from a CD or USB thumb drive, then it lets you backup or restore from that point.

With Partclone, you must be in a Linux OS. So if you can multiboot with different OS you can backup any of the other OS’s you have on your box. You can even use a live CD and us the terminal window to do the Partclone backup of your Linux OS.

With Clonezilla you must boot from a CD or USB thumb drive and it lets you backup or restore from that point. Clonezilla is a bit harder to use then Redo.

With Acronis True Image you must boot from a CD or USB thumb drive and it lets you backup or restore a Linux OS from that point. If you’re using Windows you can save an image of Windows from within Windows. This is not a free program, you must purchase it.

With Macrium you must boot from a CD or USB thumb drive and it lets you restore a Linux OS only. If you’re using Windows you can save an image of Windows from within Windows. You can not backup a from the CD boot disk, only restore. This is why I would not recommend this backup for anybody using Linux!

So what if you don’t want to make a image of your system and need to reinstall later due to major problem or bug that has developed. You should be using at least Grsync or DejaDup to backup your home directory. This way all your program preferences, documents, pictures and so on are backed up.

Then you back up what programs you have installed on your system (at least the ones from the Software Center). Programs like Google Chrome, Dropbox and other 3rd parties you will have to download and reinstall later. You should keep those on a usb drive so you don’t have go and download each time.

Here is how to backup the programs you have installed on your system using the terminal window.

To Backup:

sudo dpkg –get-selections >/home/bob/installed-software.txt  (save to your home directory)

To Restore:

sudo apt-get install aptitude (only if new install and first time running this)

sudo dpkg –clear-selections

sudo dpkg –set-selections </home/bob/installed-software.txt

sudo aptitude install

You should keep the installed-software.txt you created on a thumb drive just in case your hard drive goes bad. (Never going to happen!!!)

So in the event you need to reinstall your system and you don’t a image to recover from Just don’t format the Home Directory during the install. After the install run the restore commands listed above and you should be at least 99% done. Now just install the 3rd party programs like Google Chrome and Dropbox and that’s it.

Backup Everything, make life much simpler.

Hope this helps you understand on how to backup everything and keep your data safe just in case of emergencies

Enjoy

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