This has to be the most asked question we ever get when a customer buys a new computer.

It's now an industry standard that Microsoft no longer supply install CD's with New Laptops and PC's. This is not only to keep costs down but many support issues were caused by customers using the Microsoft setup CD's when not required.

Backing up your computer is very important as you never know what could happen. Installing free software can cause problems and your machine to crash and become unstable.

The number one reason for needing backups is "Computer Virus Infections". The best way to repair your machine after infection is simply to rebuild.

A number of products exist that are free from www.Download.com that will backup your files and settings. However they do not backup your operating system and drivers etc.

The time taken to re install the operating system alone is over 1 hour and finding drivers can take many more hours then that.

What you need to do is "Clone" or "Photocopy" your hard disk so that you can simply restore 100% of the image/data on the drive if required. This way it's restored fully and quickly and without needing to mess around re-installing everything. An image restore of a hard disk takes normally only 15 minutes to complete.

At our office we use: http://www.acronis.com.au that costs only $49 but is fast and real easy to use.

A free solution exists at: http://clonezilla.org  and it's got a good reputation for doing the exact same job.

The above 2 solutions create a single file on an external Hard Drive connected via USB. Or if you have another computer or storage on your network you can also backup to that. You only need to boot from a CD, select restore and select the backup image you created and the software will do the rest to restore your machine. The average backup file of a new machine on average takes 4GB of space and could be burned to a DVD.


We strongly suggest backing up you machine as soon as you get it and BEFORE a problem appears.