Pre-Service Backups

molotov256

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I've seen a few different schools of thought on this, so I'm curious what opinions are floating around the technibble forums...

It seems like most technicians out there say it's advisable to backup a client's computer before rendering services. Sounds like good advice to me.

That being said, under what circumstances do you backup a client's system before rendering services? Is it feasible to do a backup before every single job such as a simple Windows tuneup? Do you require it before attempting virus removal? Also, when performing a pre-service backup, what type of backup do you do? Disk image? Selective backup for user specified files? Lastly, do you charge the client for this backup, or is it included in your service(s)?

I'm still in the early stages of setting up my operation, but my business model will have me doing mostly on-site diagnoses and repairs. I'll be taking the especially problematic cases home with me if it looks like it's going to take more than two hours or so to resolve, give or take. Given this scenario, if I do a backup before every job, it seems like most of my time at the client's house would be spent imaging their hard disk instead of setting up their new wireless network or rooting out viruses.

I do have a work order drafted which is based off of Bryce's computer repair business kit, and it includes an acknowledgment on the client's part that data may be lost during the service process. Even so, I'd rather not put a client in a lost-data situation, but I want to keep my operation running efficiently, too. What's the happy medium?
 
We do backups anytime we attempt to remove a virus or do a complete reinstall. I take a ghost image of their system and start the install on another temp drive I use for installations. This way I am not waiting for anything I can start the installation (i have backups of about 1TB of xp images for different chipsets) so usually i just ghost the chipset image down, i usually have most chipsets.. As their image is being backed up I usually already have the system rebuilt (in about 10 minutes). I just need to do the latest updates and install applications the customer requested.

Then its just normal copying their data over... In our work order we ask the customer for what data is important ot them and we copy the data back on their system. We have had times when the customer forgets to tell us of other stuff like (outlook pst emails, or quickbooks) and the ghost image has saved our butts and theirs :)

So no matter what I image everytime I make any changes to their OS. Its worth the peace of mind!
 
We do backups anytime we attempt to remove a virus or do a complete reinstall. I take a ghost image of their system and start the install on another temp drive I use for installations. This way I am not waiting for anything I can start the installation (i have backups of about 1TB of xp images for different chipsets) so usually i just ghost the chipset image down, i usually have most chipsets.. As their image is being backed up I usually already have the system rebuilt (in about 10 minutes). I just need to do the latest updates and install applications the customer requested.

Then its just normal copying their data over... In our work order we ask the customer for what data is important ot them and we copy the data back on their system. We have had times when the customer forgets to tell us of other stuff like (outlook pst emails, or quickbooks) and the ghost image has saved our butts and theirs :)

So no matter what I image everytime I make any changes to their OS. Its worth the peace of mind!

How long (on avg) does it take to make an image with GHOST ? I haven't played with it since the last millennium lol
Do you do this on-site as well ?
 
I do them if I think there is a chance I will lose their user data which is when I suspect a bad drive or other data recovery issues. I don't do it routinely for a virus removal or start up error.

I certainly don't do them onsite as it would be too expensive. If you try to image over USB it's terribly slow and I don't carry the kit to do it via the ATA bus.

Is it advisable? Yes - if you have the time to do it then in an ideal world you'd do it on every machine. But it doesn't work like that. You have deadlines and promises to keep and the amount of time wasted vs the miniscule chance it will come in useful doesn't make sense for basic repair jobs with no reason to believe a drive will die.
 
Same here

I do them if I think there is a chance I will lose their user data which is when I suspect a bad drive or other data recovery issues. I don't do it routinely for a virus removal or start up error.

EXACTLY the same thoughts here! Esp. with a virus infection. Just doesn't make sense to me, the system is already infected, I won't image that, then have to remove it twice if I have to restore something? Just doesn't make sense to me. My rates are quite similar for virus removal vs. complete OS reinstall, so a little more $$ and they get a fresh install of the OS anyhow.

Layoric
 
How long (on avg) does it take to make an image with GHOST ? I haven't played with it since the last millennium lol
Do you do this on-site as well ?

It depends on the data. I usually get about 1gb/min+ but depends on the drive also. I have 4 workstations setup in my shop just for scanning for viruses and backing up drives. a 20gb drive can take about 15 - 20 mins usually. But I backup the drive and use one of my temp drives to start the intall etc and then ghost disk to disk to orignal drive later.

Seems like a lot of work but with employees doing the work I just take extra steps to never ever lose customers data. Its worth the peace of mind for me and the ghost images have saved me and the customers many many times.
 
I do them if I think there is a chance I will lose their user data which is when I suspect a bad drive or other data recovery issues. I don't do it routinely for a virus removal or start up error.

I certainly don't do them onsite as it would be too expensive. If you try to image over USB it's terribly slow and I don't carry the kit to do it via the ATA bus.

Is it advisable? Yes - if you have the time to do it then in an ideal world you'd do it on every machine. But it doesn't work like that. You have deadlines and promises to keep and the amount of time wasted vs the miniscule chance it will come in useful doesn't make sense for basic repair jobs with no reason to believe a drive will die.

I've had customers tell me "i screwed up their system and I lost all their emails" even though they never specified they used outlook express to backup their emails. I looked through their ghost image and didnt find any dbx files at all. I ran a data recovery application on their hard drive to see If i can find any files after the reformat. The customer kept telling me I lost a years worth of emails and its your fault I will sue you etc.

I ghosted his orignal hard drive down (loaded with viruses and spyware and popups) I hooked up his system and navigated through and you know what the outlook express icon was missing on the start menu it could not be found on the desktop. Then I asked my self If I cant find the icon how was the customer using "outlook express" I went to progroam files and foudn the exe file that launches outlook express and noticed that the emails I did backup for him were from a year ago.

So I called the customer back to the shop and I told him I brougth his system back to the way he brought it in beacuse we take a snapshot of your system before we do anything. The guy is like what you brougth viruses back into my system again.... I told him no it is installed on one of our temp drives and I asked him now open your outlook and show me how your accessed your outlook emails. He couldn't do it. There was not icons for him to launch OE he would have to be technical enough to find the exe in program files.

I told myself, if I did not have the ghost image it would be my word against his and also I would have never known if he really lost those files.

I have disclaimers in my work order so I am not responsible for any data loss.

After spending 200 - 300 bux on a computer repair customers will not admit that they forgot to tell you they wanted "x data" backed up... you are just suppose to know they use "x application" and they needed all the data for it. The ghost image has saved me many times over.

My business is word of mouth and I do everything I can to make sure the customer is 100% satisfied. They will never admit they are wrong in losign their data and its your fault so ghosting is the way to go i feel
 
ITTech - your horror stories are exactly what I seek to avoid, so I undoubtedly plan to image customer drives before doing a nuke and pave or any serious virus removal. I'd like to do it before each job, but I don't have a setup nearly as sophisticated as you do to be imaging a drive to temp drives and scanning from workstations and whatnot - I'm most likely to be sitting in a client's living room on their machine with my toolkit of CD's and USB sticks and my laptop. Is there a quick and efficient way for me do a drive image in that situation? As of now, I've been playing with the tools on UBCD4WIN, but that alone takes a good 10 to 15 minutes to boot, not to mention the time it takes to image to a USB drive...

For example, using UBCD4WIN on my laptop, it takes about 5 hours to backup 60GB from my C:\ drive to a USB HDD. Unacceptable time lapse to be doing it on site, lol!
 
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As a way to speed up backups you could find a laptop with an esata port and a big hdd.
If the customer has a desktop - stick your hdd in there, if they have a laptop, plug out drive from customers machine and connect it to yours via esata.
You could create a small partition for puppy or even dsl to be able to check the customers hard drive is ok and be fairly secure in the knowledge that your drive will not become infected. Then just run clonezilla to do an image from their drive to yours.

Its a bit of overkill but if you want to do an image at every onsite, the direct sata connection will improve things an awful lot.
 
For example, using UBCD4WIN on my laptop, it takes about 5 hours to backup 60GB from my C:\ drive to a USB HDD. Unacceptable time lapse to be doing it on site, lol!

Well, ATM I don't do images onsite. Obviously, USB2 is the big bottleneck. But what I was thinking of doing is buying a eSATA ExpressCard for my laptop and external eSATA drive. But the problem is I would still be mostly dependent on my trusty USB>IDE/SATA adapter...

A 2-port eSATA ExpressCard would in theory allow me image SATA drives to the external eSATA but to really cover ever possibility, I would need an ExpressCard or Cardbus EIDE port too...

Seems the only way to image quickly onsite would be to build one of those larger SFF PCs: with space for two 5.25" and 2-3 HDDs and a 14" LCD screen which you can strap to it. With that, onsite imaging would be quick but it's a lot to carry around.
 
As a way to speed up backups you could find a laptop with an esata port and a big hdd.
If the customer has a desktop - stick your hdd in there, if they have a laptop, plug out drive from customers machine and connect it to yours via esata.
You could create a small partition for puppy or even dsl to be able to check the customers hard drive is ok and be fairly secure in the knowledge that your drive will not become infected. Then just run clonezilla to do an image from their drive to yours.

Its a bit of overkill but if you want to do an image at every onsite, the direct sata connection will improve things an awful lot.

Seems the only way to image quickly onsite would be to build one of those larger SFF PCs: with space for two 5.25" and 2-3 HDDs and a 14" LCD screen which you can strap to it. With that, onsite imaging would be quick but it's a lot to carry around.

Yeah, overkill is starting to sound like the operative word. I'd like to avoid investing in a new laptop, expensive upgrades to my existing laptop, or a SFF compy to lug around. Maybe as business grows I'll further pursue those options, but as for now, I'd like to start operating in the black.

It sounds like the common consensus, with the exception of ITTech (who's setup I envy and hope one day to emulate), is to only image a client's HDD in situations which are likely to damage the client's data. As I see it now, the only scenario in which I would absolutely image the drive before proceeding would be a Nuke n' Pave situation and a failing HDD situation.

Are there any other situations in which you guys would REQUIRE yourself to do a drive image?

The second part of this equation comes to pricing. Let's say I'm doing something and I'm uncomfortable doing it without imaging the client's data. Since imaging a drive takes quite some time, I will have to take it home with be and put it on the bench. It wouldn't seem ethical to me to charge my standard bench hourly rate to do this kind of "set it and forget it" operation, so how would that service be priced? Do you guys charge separately for the service, or do you roll it up into a flat rate OS re-installation package? If you charge separately, would you be willing to proceed without imaging the data if the customer signs a waiver?

And of course, if any of this is getting too personal, you can just tell me to shut up! :rolleyes:
 
When i arrange for service I always tell the customer to back up all of their data (if possible). I try to have them do this before I ever arrive onsite.

I always have them sign a form (from Bryce's kit) before starting any work that states that I am not liable for data loss.

Spending hours onsite doing backups is not something I like to do. It's a waste of my time and the customer's money. I would rather take the computer back to my shop where I can work on other things while it backs up.

I push some sort of backup solution to every customer I have. I am a reseller of Carbonite and for those who don't like online backup I will set them up with a local backup solution.
 
I hardly ever image a customers drive however I will always back up there my docs, fav and any files and shortcuts I see on there desktop. Always ask them if they are using outlook and anything else out of the ordinary and make them sign on the dotted line that I did my "best" to copy everything I could but can not be sure I got everything.

Hard drive storage is so cheap these days, I always carry around with me an assortment of new drives desktop, laptop sata, ide. If i'm really nervous about something I will sell the customer on a new drive reload on the new drive and have the old drive as backup / security...
 
I back up EVERY drive that comes onto my bench for virus/spyware removal or HDD imminent failure... Saved my a** many times...

I have rescued data also from my archives that the customer forgot to tell me about... :-) Customer Service is the name of the game. I have 3 external USB HDD's on my bench ready for action, and the Acronis boot CD... I save the backups for 3 months. If nothing else is needed, I nuke 'em... I also tell my customers this.

I will eventually convert to an internal "frame/caddy" system on one of my workstations so it goes much faster. USB is soooooooooo SLOW! I just start it up and go eat dinner :-) I have both SATA and IDE caddies/frames for the 5-1/4" drive bays on one of my towers.
 
In my experience, if you ever have to play the "I'm not liable" card, you won't be having them as a customer again.

I can't really disagree with that. Once someone has a bad experience, even if it is ultimately their fault, there is a good chance you wont hear from them again.

I always try to do one of two things

1) Have them backup all of their data before I arrive. (preferable)

or

2) Take the computer to my shop so that i can back it up while I'm doing something else and not waste hours of my time or their money. This is only if I am doing something that may cause data loss.

I would never be reckless with someone else's data just because my service agreement says that I'm not liable, but it will continue to say so anyway.
 
I back up EVERY drive that comes onto my bench for virus/spyware removal or HDD imminent failure... Saved my a** many times...

As a lot of my business is Data Recovery, doing this seems like 'giving it away.' I understand the thoughts behind doing so, but I won't do that. Frankly, if something went wrong and it was my fault, I could generally just do a recovery free, after the fact.
 
As a lot of my business is Data Recovery, doing this seems like 'giving it away.' I understand the thoughts behind doing so, but I won't do that. Frankly, if something went wrong and it was my fault, I could generally just do a recovery free, after the fact.

I also do data recovery, but I feel that even though the customer is "mostly" wrong :-), the concept is sound (regular backups of all customers' HDD's). Data is golden, and irreplaceable... I tell my customers that all the time, and they really respect that attitude. I do my utmost to preserve their data, because MOST of them won't/can't/don't understand the concept until they lose it all... I bill for ALL of what I do for them (not the backup itself, but I DO bill for any data recovery from those backups).

I'd rather pull files from a backup image than have to do it later with recovery software from a hosed drive. Much faster. :-)
 
I think it really depends on the customer, and their requirements. If someone is saying their computer has everything of their business, they have no backup etc. I would take it or back up onsite if they are paying, before doing anything with it.

Also if the hard drive is suspect, i would take it back to the office for backup.
 
I do not do images of every computer but when I do I have a very good solution. I have a SATA box which holds two SATA Drives in a raid 1 configuration and it has a Gig network port in the back. I have a Gig network in my office and all of my business clients do as well. Many of the residential clients who have high speed cable or fiber have Gig routers, these days. It makes for a pretty quick image. If it is a client you have done business with before have them install a remote option and back it up for them the night before you go there.
 
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