Backup/Restore your PC

I’ve been fighting a computer that got damaged after a power blackout. The first thing that I noticed was that the hard drive was corrupted and unusable, so after getting over my anger, I got a new one, connected it and installed Windows XP on it. I then proceeded to install all the software that I use on the computer and I was all set. Went to sleep and the next morning the computer was restarting over and over and over without being able to start Windows. I was puzzled. I thought maybe there was a problem with the Windows installation, so I decided to reformat the drive and reinstall… again.

The Windows installation kept stopping in the middle saying that “it couldn’t find a whatever.xxx file”, the options given were “retry” or “ignore”, but if I clicked on “retry” it wouldn’t find the file again, and if I clicked on “ignore” it wouldn’t install Windows >:(

What could be the problem? Perhaps my Windows cd was scratched? I used a different cd and that didn’t help.

Maybe the cd/dvd drive is broken too? I changed the drive but that didn’t help either.

I started my system with a bootable Linux to test my hardware and that’s how I figured out that one of my RAM chips had also been affected by the power surge of the blackout. I used HC Design MemTest to test my RAM, I highly recommend it! I got a new RAM chip and proceeded to install everything… again!

I then found a GREAT program (Paragon Drive Backup) to backup the hard drive as soon as I finished installing all the software, that way, next time I need to format the computer, I just have to restore from the back up and voila! No need to spend hours installing windows, drivers and software. It also creates a bootable cd to help you restore your system and it’s free! Unlike Norton Ghost that promises to do the same but you can’t create a rescue cd, you can only buy it from Symantec… boooh!

Anyways, hope this helps you out!

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