Via Skype, Gene Barlow presented two topics: organizing and protecting your hard drive.

Organize Your Hard Drive

Division of your Hard Drive: There are reasons to have more than one partition. One is better organization. The second reason is to protect files from system crashes and malware, which often seeks to destroy the C: drive. A third reason is to facilitate partition backups. Files in similar categories, such as photos or financial information, can be stored on different partitions. Different partitions can be backed up on different schedules. Gene recommends Acronis Disk Director 11. It was the first disk manager to work with Windows 7.

Protect your Hard Drive

Best Backup Approach: What is the best hardware? There are several internet sites that offer various backup services. The best media today is an external hard drive that can be stored safely away from your computer. They are fast and reliable. You need one that is approximately the same size as your hard drive.

There are two types of backup: file back up and partition backup. A file backup is a partial back up and does not preserve your applications. Today Acronis makes the best partition backup: True Image. The free backup software that comes free with Windows and many drives is file backup only. With a partition backup, you can restore quickly to the exact state before the crash.

Acronis True Image has several utilities, including Sandbox. A software sandbox is a protected environment that you can put your hard drive in during risky operations. 

It creates a virtual machine that can be deleted if a virus has come along during a download or a Web site visit.

At http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/download/ drive-monitor/ you can download a free utility that will alert you when you need to back up or when your drive is beginning to experience errors.