The Importance of Computer Backups

My computer had a meltdown last night. It wassystem from your regular backups and just do it
awful. After doing a routine set of Windows Updatesmanually. I guess I didn't do it manually enough.
I restarted my WXP system and the whole thingHere's something else I learned. When I copied over
crashed. I run WXP on an iMac using virtualizationthe backup file for the virtual computer, I suspended
software called VMware Fusion. There was no waythe file instead of closing it completely down. When I
to fix the virtual file and eventually I had to trash it.copied over a file that is considered open it really
The good news is that I had a backup of the entirestrugged. The entire Mac shut down and wouldn't
thing and could use it instead. The bad news is thatrestart at all. I was in a panic thinking the world was
the backup is 2 months old. Apparently I wasn'tending for my computer, but by the next morning
diligent enough about making backups to protect(after a good rest of the machine), everything came
myself. I lost a lot of work files that will take a longback fine. At least it seems to be fine. Now I'll do the
time to recreate.copy the right away and shut everything down first.
On a Mac operating system you have time machineHopefully that takes care of it and things get back to
to do regular backups of any changed files. It's allnormal. At least normal as of 2 months ago. Then I
very neat and seamless. But since the virtualget to start rebuilding 2 months worth of lost work.
operating systems are such huge files (mine is 40Here's my advice, backup everything you can't live
GB) it wouldn't really slow down your system towithout. Recovery is sometimes not possible and
have that backup every time you do something in it.there are no do-overs.
So the common rule is to exclude the entire virtual