If you are not backing up your laptop, then consider for a second what you would do if your hard drive died within the next 5 minutes.

Many have no plan. They would get the faulty component, let's say the hard drive, swapped out and begin a new. Reloading the OS, and adding back to the domain, waiting for the My Docs sycn to complete, and for Outlook to pull down all the email messages.

To say this can take time, would be a vast understatement.

There is an easier way, and as the time approaches for New Year's resolutions, I'm proposing one.

Have a good working backup hard drive on standby that is no more than a week old.

This can be accomplished (setup, tested and verified) in just a few easy steps.

STEP 1

Download Symantec System Recovery 2011 and Symantec System Recovery 2011 Symantec Recovery Disk (English)
They have a free 60 day trial, that will allow you to back up your laptop and get the ball rolling:
<a href="http://www.symantec.com/business/products/trialware.jsp?pcid=pcat_business_cont&amp;pvid=1601_1">http://www.symantec.com/business/products/trialware.jsp?pcid=pcat_business_cont&amp;pvid=1601_1</a>

STEP 2

Install Symantec System Recover 2011, reboot, then open Symantec System Recovery and run Live Update to ensure you’re on the latest code level.

STEP 3

Plug up the external (backup) hard drive, open Symantec System Recovery, click on View, Tools and select Copy Hard Drive. Perform a copy job with local C: as the source and external hard drive as the destination, and be sure to select the following check boxes to ensure you have a good working copy on the other side:

Check source for file system errors

Check destination for file system errors

Set drive active (for booting OS)

Disable SmartSector copying

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CopyMBR

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