Backup and Recovery

Michele uses Carbonite and she's concerned about how long the backup lasts. Leo says that if she deletes the original on the local drive, the backup drive will be removed about three months later. But if she's syncing it, it'll delete it immediately. Generally, though, backups don't get deleted right away. That's the whole idea.

Linda has a Windows 7 machine that has been infected with malware. Leo says that ultimately, it's probably best to use the recovery discs that came with the computer. Most OEMs don't include original Windows install discs, but usually offer recovery discs. She could try cleaning the malware off, but usually malware invites more viruses, so it's the malware she doesn't know about that she should be concerned about.

Rob was using Adobe Premiere to edit his video, but he ran into problems when his external hard drive gets unplugged. Leo says that if a hard drive suddenly gets disconnected, OS X doesn't like it. Modern operating systems use a journaling setup that will save up a bunch of data before it writes to the hard drive. That's why OS X wants him to eject the drive first before disconnecting. When he disconnects while the hard drive is writing, then the hard drive writes a kind of 'word salad' to the hard drive that could corrupt it. He'll need some recovery software that can fix the file table.

Greg has an issue with Carbonite. He wants to transfer his data from one computer to another, and they want to handle it for him. Can he trust them to handle the data? Leo says that Greg can do it himself, but if he's not all that technically apt, then he can absolutely trust Carbonite.

(Disclaimer: Carbonite is a sponsor)