Best backup practices and recovering lost data.
Backup and Recovery
How can I get my email in Mozilla Thunderbird backed up to Carbonite?
Episode 1048
Chris uses Carbonite and wants to know if there's a better email program than Outlook. He also wants to know if that would make it better for backing up. Leo says that Outlook puts everything in one giant .pst file, but Mozilla Thunderbird breaks it out into individual files. Carbonite or any backup company just will backup whatever files he has, it won't care what program he's using. It's up to him to have it backup the right files. So as long as he backs up his Thunderbird Profile, he should be OK.
What's the best off site backup option?
Episode 1044
Ben has been following Leo's advice of 3-2-1 backup: Three backups, two different forms of media, and one off site. He uses IBM's Tivoli and backs up to an external hard drive, which he keeps in his car. He's been looking at Carbonite and CrashPlan's Code 42 as alternatives. Leo says it's interesting that Crashplan will let him send a hard drive to them and it's nice that it's free to use as well. Leo says that a lot of options are out there with similar services, including RSync and JungleDisk.
What's the best way to back up my music?
Episode 1043
Dwayne has 20,000 songs on iTunes and spent hundreds of hours collecting songs. But he isn't sure Carbonite is the best place to store his music. Leo says it isn't. It would take too long to upload: 100GB would take about 3 months. So Leo recommends Google Music. It's free and he'll be able to keep 25,000 there.
How can I transfer settings from one Android phone to another?
Episode 1042
Peter has a Samsung Galaxy SIII and a new Samsung Galaxy Note III, and is trying to transfer over all his settings and apps. How should he go about doing this?
How can I recover data from a crashed hard drive?
Episode 1041
Jim's computer drive can't be read by Windows, but it can be seen by a Mac as read only. He can see it on a friend's windows machine, too. If he plugs it in, it asks if he wants to format the drive. Leo says there's a software error that is preventing the computer to read it. The good news is that it can be fixed, but it's often too expensive to go to a specialist. GRC's SpinRite is a good utility but it's also not cheap. It does work if he absolutely needs the data.
Why does my data keep getting corrupted? (Part 1)
Episode 1037
Willy has several flash drives and portable hard drives that keep getting corrupted, and he wants to know how he can recover that data. Paying someone to recover it is expensive, so he should try using recovery software. It could also be that drives are just failing. Hard drives either fail early, or fail after about 3 years. The longer he keeps them, the more likely they are to fail.
How can I sync hard drives to my NAS?
Episode 1036
Dwayne just bought a WD MyCloud external drive and wants to clone his PC drive. Leo says that it's USB capable, but the USB port is only for attaching other hard drives. Leo suggests connecting an Ethernet cable and moving the data over with that. He can use SyncToy to sync them. There's also Second Copy from Centered Systems. The Chatroom says that the MyCloud folder on the desktop does that automatically.
Is Sandboxing a good idea to protect from Malware like CyptoLocker?
Episode 1035
Don has been sandboxing his PC via SandBoxie to combat CryptoLocker. Leo says it works! He's wondering if it works with Outlook. Leo says he hasn't used it, but he says that Steve Gibson says it's legit. But Leo says that it's still wise to backup data anyway.
Will a virus survive formatting a hard drive?
Episode 1034
Lorraine is wiping her hard drive and reinstalling, and is worried that if she doesn't partition her hard drive correctly, a virus could survive formatting. Leo says no, that was an urban legend that has since been debunked. There have been cases of viruses that could hide in the BIOS or in the memory of a video card or printer, but Leo's never seen it happen in real life. So there's no real worry.
How can I save the data on my crashed hard drive?
Episode 1032
Hamit's Western Digital MyBook external hard drive crashed after his toddler got a hold of it. It makes a terrible noise now and he can't access it. Leo says the read head or disc arm has bent or broken. Sometimes it's possible to get a last use out of it by freezing the drive for a few hours. Wrap it in plastic wrap first. But that's a last ditch hail mary.
