Tech Talk Q&A

The following are snippets of written support communications I have had with my clients.  My hope is that you will find them useful and informative.

QUICK-LINK INDEX

Home/Office Backup

 

REGARDING HOME AND OFFICE BACKUP OPTIONS

A client asked me what kind of online backup service he should use.  I explained that most of these online backup schemes are "incremental" backups, and can be a good adjunct to a home or office backup, but that he should never depend completely upon an online, incremental backup.  Here is an excerpt from our written communication:

With incremental backup systems, you need to be sure to enable it to periodically recreate the BASE backup.  Most people don’t really have a clue as to how their backup system works or how they’ll get everything back exactly like it was before the big crash.  Everybody likes the idea of an incremental backup, but few realize that with an incremental backup you end up having MULTIPLE individual files to restore from in the event of a crash, and that if any one of those individual backup files is corrupted, the whole thing can be useless. 

The ideal, most reliable and practical backup is to set the software to backup the entire server's hard drive every night.  This needs to be on a fixed schedule and the owner needs to know how to monitor the process and the results.

I have all my clients' backup systems send me a nightly report as to the status of their backup jobs.  Here is an example report that I got from an office that has over 120 gigs of data (xrays and intra-oral photos, mostly) that must be backed up every night without fail:

1    Information    8/13/2009 1:30:03 AM    Operation NIGHTLY AT 1:30 AM started.

2    Warning!    8/13/2009 1:30:03 AM    Priority changed to High.

3    Information    8/13/2009 1:30:05 AM    Analyzing partition 0-0...

4    Information    8/13/2009 1:30:06 AM    Analyzing partition C:...

5    Information    8/13/2009 1:30:08 AM    Analyzing partition 0-0...

6    Information    8/13/2009 1:30:09 AM    Analyzing partition J:...

7    Information    8/13/2009 1:30:24 AM    Create Full Backup Archive From: Disk 1 To file:   "J:\IMAGES\FULLSERVER.tib" Compression:   Normal 

8    Information    8/13/2009 1:30:24 AM    Pending operation 138 started: "Creating partition image"

9    Information    8/13/2009 1:30:24 AM    Locking partition C:...

10    Information    8/13/2009 3:25:59 AM    Pending operation 135 started: "Saving partition structure"

11    Information    8/13/2009 3:26:00 AM    Operation has succeeded.

This report shows that the entire process took two hours, and has succeeded without error.   This client (and all of my clients) have TWO external backup drives that they swap every morning.  They take one OFFSITE to ensure the ability to recover in the event of fire or theft.  I periodically make an ARCHIVE of their backup files in the event that the original files won’t open for some reason.  IN ADDITION, I HAVE THE SYSTEM MAKE A DATA-ONLY BACKUP EVERY NIGHT TOO.  This ensures that if one backup fails, the other one saves the day.

Again, a truly “unattended” backup that the user never has to look at or verify or attend to, is NO BACKUP AT ALL.  Something as important as the backing up of your data REQUIRES the owner to pay at least a modicum of attention to the process. 

You can be assured that over the last twenty years of providing support to business offices, I’ve seen many other consultant's backup systems fail completely.  The info and recommendations I’ve provided here are the result of real, “in the trenches” experience. 

ABOUT SEVEN OUT OF TEN NEW CLIENTS WHO CALL ME IN TO EVALUATE THEIR EXISTING NETWORKS HAVE AN UNRESTORABLE OR ONLY PARTIALLY RESTORABLE BACKUP SYSTEM IN PLACE.   Very few of the principals who depend upon these old, faulty backup systems have any idea what to do in the event of a hard drive crash.  They are completely dependent upon their tech support person. 

For example, here are the probable steps required to restore from an “internet-based” backup system:

1. Replace failed hard drive.

2. Reinstall Windows and all programs -- online backup systems are typically for DATA only, and normally do not provide “bare metal” restoration options.  Yeah, some do, but good luck with it.

3. Reconfigure the computer as close as you can to the way it was before the crash.  Recreate users, add printers, re-license/re-activate copy protected programs, etc. 

4. Connect to the online backup service and begin downloading the data.  This could take six hours or more, depending on the amount of data and the bandwidth of your Internet account. (Or you can have them mail you a DVD.  Another day lost.)

5. The computer ends up looking nothing like the original setup, and you spend the next few weeks trying to get everything “just right” like it was before.

I prefer to provide my clients up with a system that they can manage themselves.  I want them to be able to recover from a catastrophic hard drive failure by themselves, if necessary.

Here are the instructions necessary to recover from a complete hard drive crash using the backup method I have been recommending:

1. Replace failed hard drive.  Note:  I put the server's primary hard drive in a removable tray, so the user doesn't even need to open the case to swap the drive.  OR, I originally set them up with two, identical servers that allows them to recover from ANY hardware failure in minutes.

2. Boot from the recovery CD we make when we setup the backup system.  If that disk is lost, re-create the disk on any other computer.

3. Follow the on-screen prompts to restore from last night’s backup.  The last step in the process is to reboot and go back to work.

 

SLUGGISH, MALWARE-INFESTED, SECURITY-COMPROMISED COMPUTERS

CLIENT:  Thanks for cleaning up my computer remotely last night!  I was surprised to learn that you'd found any bugs at all.  I run [undisclosed antivirus product] every day, and it told me I was safe.

MARK:  To clarify, your  antivirus product had previously fought off 40 different malware infections (see the program's history log), but when I updated and ran another malware scanning tool, it found multiple OTHER (nasty!) infections that were resident and active on your computer.  The antivirus product you have on your home computer did not identify and therefore could not protect you from these.  Those particular bugs get past LOTS of antivirus products, so we can’t jump on [undisclosed antivirus product] too much. 

The bad guys stay up at night writing new, more powerful bugs while us good guys try to get some sleep.

The trick is to say NO to anything and everything that the Internet tries to get you to install that you did not specifically go looking for.  The advertisers try to trick us into clicking on and running a wide variety of junk so that they can mine our computers and our online activity for info that they use to create targeted advertising. There’s MONEY in this for them, and they’ll never give up. 

TOOLBARS:   They're unnecessary and can cause multiple problems.  Just say “No to Toolbars.”  Ask yourself why your ISP and all the advertisers are so insistent that you install their particular toolbar.  Ask yourself who is actually being served by these things.

SCREENSAVERS:  You're unlikely to find a single “free” screensaver program off the Internet that isn’t spyware supported in some way.  Use the ones that come with Windows, and never use one that comes from the Internet.  

ONLINE "VIRUS SCANS" AND "REGISTRY OPTIMIZERS":  If you’re ever prompted to run a malware scan or “registry optimization” or anything like that while you’re on the Internet, run away!  There's a good chance that it's bogus.  Your computer had a fully-integrated infestation of the “WinAntivirus 2009” Trojan (among other things), and it's likely that you got this from clicking "yes" to a helpful-appearing Internet-based prompt.   Don't feel bad, many, many users fall for those prompts (and most computers have at least one significant infection as a result).  Education and awareness is the key to staying secure on the Internet.  Pass the word!  Each One Teach One! 

Note:  Most valid, established antivirus companies provide us with free online malware scanning tools, and those are just fine and can be very helpful.  The paragraph above refers to a whole new crop of FAKE antivirus sites.  To be on the safe side, stick with the KNOWN antivirus sites for your online-scanning needs.  For a few examples, click here.

A problem with some of the infections these days is that they can snag the credit card number right off of the online forms you fill out when ordering products or services (or from your computer’s cached info.  You discover this later when your bank records show that you purchased three new, high-end plasma TV sets, a new racing bike AND you spent $8,000 bucks on a vacation in Hawaii. 

Your computer is all cleaned up now.  I removed the toolbars, screensavers and other spyware-supported apps; I dumped all temporary files, applied updates, tightened your security settings and made changes to your interface that will significantly improve your computer's performance. 

Let me know how it goes and remember that you can ask me anything.  If I don't know the answer, I'll keep looking until I find it.

Mark