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 anew: reloading the OS, and adding back to the domain, waiting for the My Docs sycn to complete, installing the necessary apps, and waiting 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.

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

This can be accomplished (setup, tested and verified) in just a few easy steps with <a title="Symantec System Recvoery 2011" href="http://www.symantec.com/business/system-recovery-desktop-edition" target="_blank">Symantec System Recovery 2011</a>.

<strong>STEP 1</strong>

Download Symantec System Recovery 2011. They have a free 60 day trial, that will allow you to back up your laptop and get the ball rolling. I highly recommend purchasing the full version and using all the bells and whistles.

<strong>STEP 2</strong>

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

<strong>STEP 3</strong>

Plug up the external (backup) hard drive, open Symantec System Recovery, click on <strong>View</strong>, <strong>Tools</strong> and select <strong>Copy My Hard Drive</strong>. 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:
<ul>
	<li>Check source for file system errors</li>
	<li>Check destination for file system errors</li>
	<li>Set drive active (for booting OS)</li>
	<li>Disable SmartSector copying</li>
	<li> CopyMBR</li>
</ul>
 <strong>STEP 4</strong>

Once the copy job is complete. Shutdown your laptop, remove the laptop hard drive and swap in your new backup copy drive. Boot up your system and confirm that you boot into the OS normally.

At this point you should be on your system like you normally are. You have verified that your backup copy is good to go. You can either swap the hard drive back to the original config or you can carry on as is.

<strong>STEP 5</strong>

Set a weekly reminder in your calendar to repeat STEP 3 and you'll be on your way to bulletproof failback plan for your laptop moving forward. 

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