Recovery from a virus attack or corrupt OS (operating system) can be a challenge. Don’t play with fire, no matter what your system, run an antivirus, do regular recovery images and have some basic recovery tools.
Some Windows examples are below but similar solutions exist for Apple and other OS based machines.
Just yesterday a client informed me that the Geek Squad wanted to charge him $300 for fixing his laptop after getting a virus. You can fix it yourself. If you have backups it will save you hours of time. My client had not made backups. The fix was time consuming and really a good value considering what had to be done:
- Backup all the documents and media
- Remake the hard drive and install the OS
- Install an antivirus
- Install any OS updates and fixes
- Restore the previously backed up data
- Install all the programs again
Acronis True Image
Third party software is one of the main reasons that cause system instability. Windows has an automatic system restore feature that allows you to roll back to a time before you installed the software that created instability. That’s an easy fix for simple corruption.
Don’t backup your system – image it! I recommend that you run disc images to an external hard drive. There are many programs that will image, I prefer Acronis True Image but if you are computer savvy try TeraByte Image For Windows and save some money. Image For Windows has improved and simplified their interface but it helps if you are a geek.
Image For Windows
An imaging program makes an image of the entire drive will allow you to restore an entire drive image or individual files. You can even successfully restore an image of your boot drive. Both of these image solutions allow you to backup your computer while it’s operating. A backup program without imaging replaces step one and five above – but you still must perform the other steps to fully recover
Are you feeling lucky? Don’t play Russian roulette with your computer. You need to have a recovery solution in place and make regular reoccurring images.
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