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Casper v4.0: Hard Drive Backup and Recovery
by Robert Du Varney
 Future Systems Solutions, Inc., developer of Casper which is a hard disk cloning solution designed for the everyday user for an easy-to-use, convenient and dependable backup and recovery program. This not just any old backup program nor is it a plain program that just stores your stuff.
I don’t usually mention the price first, but this is a very good investment in your sanity and cheaper than any prescription for data lost! Invest $50 USD and if your system allows you to boot from external device great, you are set. If not, then you need to pony up an additional $10 USD for a Boot CD, that will allow you to boot from an external CD/DVD. So it’s basically $60 USD, plus time to create the backup copy.
Casper 4 is one of those programs that you should use at least once a month! After you have de-loused your system, cleaned up all the trash and backed up your bookmarks/favorites and make a copy of the address books and other really critical bits to a CD and then defragment your hard drive…you are ready to do a HD backup using Casper. When you have made your 1st cloned copy, you just switch the connections on your system and boot from the copy as a test. You will be impressed, and know that, that 30 minutes was well worthwhile; it is a good feeling! Laptops are a different deal!
That is, create a clone of your C: drive! The one with your O/S and programs on it! If you have installed your programs on a secondary logical partition such as the D: drive, well then you include that guy too. This clone of your HD is such that should your C: drive show up with Maj. Disaster & Gen. Failure occurring or that subtle clicking sound and nothing happening, you can unplug the failed drive and plug in the backup copy and power up and you have a running system! Or, boot with Casper and restore from the Image/Clone backup to your new HD. Casper 4 will format/partition whatever, on the new HD as necessary!
Casper v4 works with 2000, XP and Vista, it works with SATA, PATA connections as well and it works with a RAID setup. But it only works when you use it! Don’t buy the darn thing and then not make the backup! And, don’t make your backup years apart and then want to do a restore now! You need to get into a routine of actually backing up! Casper 3 doesn’t work with Vista, but there is an upgrade deal.
INCRMENTAL type backup is called Smart Backup! If you are really into this, you may choose that path. Last time I used incremental backup was on an IBM mainframe! But someone else took care of that task set. I like separate HD cloned drive! This is a good way to use those older HD drives you have gathering dust! You will be impressed in how little real space you need for a backup, after a bit of house cleaning. Your call, a complete Clone or Smart Backup.
Casper works like a charm for me! I will never ever again have to call India to get my O/S authenticated, because I have a backup copy of the base system stashed away! And there is also a copy of my system which is not more than two months old, sitting right next to the base copy!
Not sure? Download the 30 day trial. Try it and you will be convinced! Customer support is basically e-mail for registered users; they are quick to respond. My clients all use Casper because it is virtually fool proof and straight forward; I strongly recommend it for your “tool kit”. Casper is sold on the Internet and, yes, you need a bank card to buy it. For more info and updates go to: www.fssdev.com/products/casper/
Robert Du Vernay is HAL-PC member who can be reached at rpd@hal-pc.org.
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