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Three ways to back up and protect your data

By BY GEORGE GORDON/Computer Guru - | Feb 17, 2023

Last week I had two customers that brought in computers that the hard drives crashed. Neither one had any backups and would have lost it all if I didn’t have the Ontracks Software to retrieve the lost files. Otherwise they would have to send in the hard drive to Ontracks, where they charge starting at $500 to $5,000 to retrieve the data.

So, in this issue, I’ll give you three ways to back up your data so that you’ll never lose it.

First is the cloud service, and it’s 100 percent safe. For the Apple products, you can use iCloud. Go to iCloud.com and create an account. Once you do that, open up your MacBook, iPad or iPhone and sign in.

Let’s give you an example on the MacBook. Click on the Apple icon at the top left and choose System Preferences (or on the new Ventura, System Settings). At the top is your name and Apple ID. Click on it and choose iCloud. Click on iCloud Drive and choose Options. There you can choose what you need to have backed up, then click on Done. At the same menu, now choose iCloud mail. The last step is scrolling down the list of apps and choosing the ones you want backed up.

Now the second way to preserve your important data is to go over to Costco and purchase two USB External Hard Drives. Why two? Well, because one of them is going to be used as a Time Machine Backup, and the other one is used to put any photo or file on it (you can unplug it, and plug it into another computer and transfer photos or files to it).

But first let’s start with setting up the Time Machine. When you open the box with the new hard drive, plug it into the USB slot — instantly on your computer screen a message pops up asking if you want to make the USB Hard Drive a Time Machine. Click YES. Now sit back, and it will automatically copy your whole computer’s Operating System, photos, music, e-mails, contacts, documents and everything else on your computer to it. This is VERY IMPORTANT: never put any data on it. Don’t touch it EVER. Just keep it plugged in.

If you ever deleted a document, all you have to do is click on the Time Machine icon at the top, and a list of dates appear. You can just tap on yesterday’s date, and all the files of that day appear. There you can find the file you mistakenly deleted and drag it back to the desktop.

Now, with the other hard drive you bought, just unpack it and plug it in. The same message appears asking if you want to use this new hard drive as a Time Machine. Choose NO. That’s it. You’re good to go, adding anything you want to that hard drive.

The other options you can choose to store or back up your data are Google Drive, Dropbox, or on the Windows computer system, One Drive. Some Window users like Carbonite. People get confused with iCloud Drive and iDrive. iDrive doesn’t back up your data. What it does is sync your data with your iPhone and iPad, and if you have an iMac or MacBook, it will share all the data with them all.

I use iDrive so that all my photos and documents keep up-to-date on all devices.

If anyone has lost data on their hard drives, I can usually retrieve it at about $75 to $100, versus $500 to $5,000 sending it into Ontracks.