What's The Best Way to Keep My Data Safe?

People usually don't ask me how to protect their machines until after something has gone wrong (and something always goes wrong). These tips offer steps you can take beforehand to minimize the damage when trouble strikes.

Back it up: When your system is running well, make a full backup of your hard drive, including your Windows settings. If Windows becomes unstable, restoring it from a backup is considerably easier than reinstalling the operating system from scratch. Read instructions in Jon L. Jacobi's Backup Tips column.

Unfortunately, I've yet to find the perfect backup utility. I use Dantz Retrospect, which is wonderfully powerful, and once set up it requires almost no brainpower. The problem is the setup: Retrospect appears to have been designed at the "Can't We Make It Harder?" school of interface engineering. I also like NovaStor NovaBackup and Acronis True Image, with some reservations. To read my rant on the poor state of backup software, see my PCWorld.com blog entry "We Need Better Backup Software" . For backup recommendations, see Danny Allen's Top 5 Backup Utilities.

Be prepared for the unbootable: If Windows won't boot, a good system backup might help. Then again, it might not. Even if it does help, there may be an easier solution than restoring a backup.

In the days of Windows 9x, you'd simply create an emergency floppy that booted DOS (remember DOS?) and came with all sorts of diagnostic tools. No such luck with Windows 2000 or XP. DOS wouldn't even see an NTFS partition.

You can gather several tools for that dark day, however. See "What to Do When XP or 2000 Won't Boot" for details. And if you don't have a floppy drive, see "Emergency Boot CDs for PCs Without Floppy Drives".

Defend yourself: You've probably already protected yourself against malware, but I'm going to recommend one more security program to augment the others: Webroot Software's $30 Spy Sweeper. It's not only an excellent spyware catcher, but this application also warns you when an installation sets up an autoloader, and gives you an opportunity to stop that addition. Since autoloading programs--even when they come with legitimate software--cause a lot of performance and stability problems, this is a nice added feature.