DEVELOP A DEFENSIVE PLAN

The data you lovingly place on your hard drive typically falls into several categories, each of varying importance. One category is the Windows installation itself, which you mayor may not care too deeply about. The second category is your apps, games, and utilities, which are usually replaceable (though reinstallation is a PITA, we won't kid you). The third cat­egory we define as "data" digital photos, videos, Word documents, MP3s, saved game files, and so forth. This is the stuff that's either irreplaceable or difficult to reacquire, so you should take great care to protect it. Let's examine a few preser­vation strategies.

GET RAIDED
Implementing a RAID 1 array is a good place to start for data protection. In this type of RAID setup, every bit of data you write to your system is mirrored on two separate hard drives. So in the event of a terminal drive failure, you'll still have all your data
intact on the remaining drive. Of course, in order to use RAID, you'll need a hardware RAID controller, either on your motherboard or on a PCI add-in card. The bigger caveat, however, is that RAID 1 only protects your data from drive failure; if your machine gets infected with a virus, or something else scrambles your data, it's gone! So even if you use RAID 1, it's still important you per­form regular backups.

INVEST IN AN EXTER­NAL BACKUP DRIVE

External hard drives are ridiculously cheap these days, so there's no excuse not to spring for an external backup drive. There are scads of drives on the market, and most of them include excel­lent backup software, but we recommed the 250GB Western Digital Media Center Dual­
Option backup drive($330, www.wdc.com). It's fast, roomy, and includes FireWire and USB 2.0 connections.

Most of the time, the backup software will have you set up a simple script that does something like "back up all of the contents of your C: drive every week and put it on the F: drive:' Once all this is configured, the back­ up will run on its own according to schedule.
These drives make backing up your system really painless, and we can'temphasize enough how important it is to keep a cur­rent backup of your data.

TAKE CHARGE OF YOUR DOCUMENTS

Because most of us use the My Documents folder as a catch-all repository for every­thing from dog show photos to tax returns, it's a good idea to store this directory in the safest location possible.

And, yes, you do have the option of pointing your My Documents folder to any location on any hard drive. To change the location of this folder, simply right-click it and select Properties, then click "move:' A dialog box will open asking where you'd like to move it to, so select the new location (a new drive, a new partition, etc.) and click OK. When it asks if you'd like to move all your docu­ments to the new location, click "yes:' On the surface you won't notice any change at all, as your documents will still be there when you click My Documents, but your files will be safely stored on another drive.

Backing up data ranks right up there with flossing in terms of activities we look forward to, but with all your personal data in one folder, manual backups are quick and simple. So do yourself a favor-quit saving files to your desktop. Save them to someplace in My Documents, and then protect this folder with your life.

You have no excuse not to have an external backup drive, so either get a basic "drive in a box" type or splurge on something like the WD Media Center above.

THE ART OF SAFE DOWNLOADING AND INSTALLING

There are few computing practices more dangerous than randomly downloading and installing apps and utilities. Sure, you can usually uninstall them, but some apps carry spyware payloads that are difficult or impossible to expunge from a system. Even in best-case scenarios, uninstalled apps can leave bits of data peppered across your hard drive.

We always check the user comments on popular shareware sites (such as Download.com) before installing new software. It's better to read about other people's misfortune than to experience it firsthand. Once you decide to try an app, you should make certain you get it from a reputable source.

Also, if you really want to experiment with a variety of unknown apps from a popular shareware site, we recommend you create a limited user account in WinXP. (Go to Control Panel, Users, then click "Create new account:' Make sure it's designated as a limited account) By using the limited account, the shareware install­er won't be able to install files in protected areas of your drive-like the Windows direc­tory. Once the app is installed on the limited account, scan your computer for spyware. If nothing shows up, feel free to reinstall the software to your primary account.

KEEP YOUR DRIVE DEFRAG'D

When you install applications on your hard drive, the data is not written in neat, sequential rows across the platters, but rather wherever there happens to be room. Data belonging to sundry documents and programs are typically scattered allover your drive, so when you install a new pro­gram, it will be installed with a chunk of code here, a chunk of code there, and so forth.

This condition is known as "fragmen­tation;' because each file may be broken up and distributed over several different drive locations. Accessing a fragmented file takes longer than accessir'lg one that's written sequentially, because the hard drive's read! write heads have to skip and jump allover the drive to pick up the pieces of the file.

You can remedy this situation with regu­lar drive defragmentation, which causes Windows to pick up pieces of files and move them together into sequential arrange­ments (or at least as sequential as possible). The defragment utility built into Windows XP (really just a stripped-down version of Executive Software's Diskeeper) gets the job done just fine. We recommend defragging your drive at least once a month.

PAY ATTENTION TO DRIVE NOISE-IT MAY BE A CRY FOR HELP

Despite the furious activity taking place within a hard drive, these storage devic­es are usually exceptionally quiet, as
the read/write heads float on top of the platters. What's more, newer hard drives use fluid bearings to reduce noise even further. During regular hard drive opera­tion, all you should hear is the sound of read/write heads moving back and forth over platters, which produces a soft clicking noise. You should never, ever hear a noise that sounds like grinding or metal-on-metal rubbing.

If you ever hear any strange noises coming from your drive, immediately back up its contents. You should also download the drive diagnostic utility spe­cific to your drive (it should be available on your drive manufacturer's web site). If you suspect your drive is
having problems, download the appropri­ate utility, and run it to see if your drive is having a gastrointestinal disorder. You can also use the bundled Scandisk utility in WinXp, which is accessible by opening
My Computer, right-clicking your drive, selecting Tools and clicking "scan now:' ­

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