This is how we do it do it. Here's a short but useful article about an actual operating system hard disk corruption and a quick, effective method of recovery, including up-to-date backups, system imaging, partitioning from a Linux live session, bootloader setup, filesystem checks, other tips and tricks, and more. Less than one hour downtime, read on. http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/hard-disk-failure-recovery.html Cheers, Mrk
The key thing I wish everyone would take away from that is this, . And at least one should be "off-site". One backup saved in the same physical location of the computer is not a robust backup plan. Many people regularly backup to an external drive, and that's good. But then they leave it on their computer desk. That's not good - especially if their only backup. If a fire, flood, hurricane, or tornado destroys your home, you lose your only backup too. I know of such cases. I also know of a case where a burglar broke into a home and stole the computer and the external drive sitting next to the monitor that contained their only backups. Keep a backup in "the cloud", at a trusted friend's or neighbor's house, or in a safe deposit box at your bank - or at all 3 places. Don't rely on a single backup device in a single location. All drives will fail - eventually.
