Triona's Tech Tips

In this month’s Northwest Herald technology column I explain why it’s important to have more than one backup of your computer data. It’s also critical to test restoring your data to make sure your backups are valid. To do this, follow your software’s procedures for recovering data, but redirect the data so it doesn’t overwrite the original.

Most software has an option called “destination” or “target,” where the recovered data is to be saved. If you select that option you can redirect the data to another location. You may want to create a special folder ahead of time for the restored data. Then you can compare it to the original. As I said in the article, don’t just check file names; try opening each kind of file you use (say, one Word file, one Excel file, and so on). If you don’t have a solid backup strategy, including off-site storage in case of a disaster, all your hard work could be lost.

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