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Just like setting your alarm clock each evening, performing computer back-ups is now second nature and a common element of your routine, right? And you know that when disaster strikes, those backups will immediately come to the rescue, restoring all your precious data that otherwise would be lost.

However, even though we regularly follow the practice of creating back-ups, we almost never get a chance to actually restore them, and that's a good thing. But when you're facing a damaged hard drive that no longer boots, you don't want to be scrambling to find restoration instructions because that's when you need your data and you need it now.

Ditch The Drive

Although backups are essential, they can be useless if there's no practical method to restore them when an emergency strikes. Today's backup programs help you create a bootable CD, DVD, or floppy diskette that you can use to recover data stored on your backup media. Using one of these discs or floppies, you can boot your computer directly to that media, which contains a program that will walk you through the process of restoring data.

Always create a bootable CD or floppy diskette using your backup software so you'll be able to restore your backups directly to your new drive.

Before you use emergency media to restore your data, you'll first need to address your dead hard drive. By "dead hard drive" we mean a drive that your BIOS (Basic Input/Output System) can't recognize, or if it does recognize the drive, it returns a diagnostic message that indicates the drive has failed (such as "Primary master hard disk failure").

To restore your system, you'll need to replace the hard drive, insert your emergency recovery disc or floppy, and follow the prompts to begin the recovery process. If you didn't make a complete backup of your system (that is, create a mirror image of your drive), you won't be able to use this method. Instead, you'll need to install Windows from scratch on your new hard drive and then install your backup software before being able to restore any files that you previously backed up.

If you did make a complete backup (mirror image) of your system, we'll walk you through the process of restoring your Windows environment and data, and we'll use Acronis True Image as an example of how this type of backup software and the restoration process work.

Time to Restore

A crucial ingredient of the backup recipe is the emergency disc (or floppy) that you made when you created your system backup, although some backup applications, such as Symantec's Norton Ghost, require only the original product disc (not an emergency disc).

Without that emergency or product disc, you won't be able to boot your computer using the backup software, but that doesn't mean you can't restore your system; as we mentioned earlier, you'll need to install Windows on your new drive, reinstall the back-up software, and then restore the backup using your backup discs or files stored on another drive. But the boot disc can save you lots of time by helping you immediately restore your system to the new drive without installing Windows.

Restoring your system backup might sound like a harrowing process, but it's really quite simple because your backup software will walk you through the process. In fact, the only potentially tricky step is booting to the emergency disc, and that's only troublesome if your BIOS isn't configured to automatically boot to a CD because you'll need to manually configure it.

When the Advanced BIOS Features screen (or something similar in your BIOS [Basic Input/Output System]) displays the order of boot devices on your system, use the First Boot Device entry to change the order.

After you install your new hard drive using the instructions included with the drive, turn on your computer and insert your emergency CD or floppy, and then restart your computer (and because you won't be in Windows at this point, you'll need to press the restart or power button on your PC). The BIOS should recognize that there isn't an OS (operating system) on the drive and automatically look to boot from the CD or floppy. If you see the software starting, you're in luck; but if the system returns an error and stops loading, you'll need to enter the BIOS.

If this is the first time you've entered your BIOS, don't worry too much about it because you can't damage your system unless you manually make changes and confirm the changes before exiting the BIOS. With that said, never make changes unless you understand what those changes will do. Many of these settings can profoundly affect your system's performance. Because the BIOS may vary among different computers, you should check your motherboard manual to see how to change the device boot order, but we'll walk you through a typical scenario here, using the Phoenix BIOS as an example.

On the main Phoenix menu, use your keyboard's arrow keys to select Advanced BIOS Features and press ENTER. On the Advanced BIOS Features screen, select First Boot Device, press ENTER, and in the pop-up menu, select CDROM (if you're using a floppy to boot your backup software, select Removable) and press ENTER. Press ESC to exit the Advanced BIOS Features screen, select Save & Exit Setup, press Y to confirm the changes, and press ENTER.

Once your computer restarts, the BIOS will recognize the bootable CD or floppy and start the backup program. The particular software we're using (Acronis True Image) first displays an introduction screen that offers three options: Start the full version, which includes drivers for USB, PC Card, and SCSI (Small Computer System Interface) devices; start the safe version, which doesn't include support for those devices; or boot into Windows. Acronis recommends starting the full software version to provide support for any related devices, but if you're restoring a backup to a standard IDE (Integrated Drive Electronics) hard drive, you can use either the first or the second option.

After choosing either the full or safe version of Acronis True Image, the software displays its main window, which offers a variety of functions. The second option, Recovery, will allow you to restore the image of your previous hard drive to your new drive, so click it to launch the Restore Data Wizard. Click Next to go to the Archive Selection dialog box, where you can browse for the image file you previously created. Acronis True Image backup files use TIB extensions, so select the TIB file that represents the latest image of your system drive and click Next.

In the following dialog box, select Restore Disks or Partitions to completely restore the image to your new hard drive and click Next. When the next dialog box displays the drive image, select it, click Next, and then select your new hard drive (or drive partition) on the subsequent dialog box, and click Next. Now you'll need to select the restored partition type, and because this image will serve as your system drive or partition, select the Active option and click Next. (Acronis True Image automatically selects the original partition type, so the restored partition type should already be Active.)

In the Acronis True Image application, you can browse through other connected hard drives or your media to search for backup images.

Now Acronis True Image gives you the opportunity to specify the size and location of the restored partition. The minimum partition size displayed by Acronis True Image represents the amount of data that exists in the image, but you shouldn't limit your partition to that minimum size because you'll run into problems later when installing more programs or otherwise storing more data on that drive.

Try to keep at least 5GB of extra space on the system partition, and leave the rest as free space that you'll be able to format and partition later in Windows. If you already formatted your drive according to the size of the partitions you desire, you won't need to change the partition size. For instance, if you restore your old 12GB drive to a new 60GB drive and create a new system partition of 18GB, the remaining storage on the new hard drive will remain on the drive but will be unallocated and unformatted, and you won't be able to use that remaining storage until you format it. Although it's technically possible to restore the 12GB image to a single, 60GB partition that comprises all of the new drive's storage, it's better to create a separate system partition, as this is generally more efficient than storing all of your computer's data including the system files on one partition.

If your backup software allows you to create new partitions (or a single, second partition) from the remaining space on your new hard drive during the restoration process, it's less of a hassle to do it at that time, rather than wait to create new partitions and format them after restoring your system partition. However, if you do choose to wait until after you restore your system partition to deal with the remaining space, you can use the Disk Management utility in Windows XP to create and format partitions (for information on using the Disk Management utility, visit support.microsoft.com). For older Windows versions, it's better to use a partition utility such as Symantec's Norton Partition Magic ($69.95; www.symantec.com) or Paragon Partition Manager ($49.95; www.partition-manager.com), though the included Fdisk utility also can do the job, albeit in a more complicated manner. (For more information on using Fdisk, visit support.microsoft.com)

Returning to the Acronis True Image example, click Next after selecting your restored partition size. Acronis True Image then asks if you want to assign a logical drive letter to the restored partition. Because this will be your system partition, stick it with the recommended "C" selection and click Next. In the resulting dialog box, you can select options for checking the backup before restoration and checking the file system after restoration. The file system check is fine, but if this is your only image backup, don't waste your time performing a backup check because if it's corrupted, you're out of luck anyway and will need to reinstall Windows from scratch. Click Next.

You're almost home free at this point. If you previously tested your backup archive using your backup software, the restoration process will be successful.

The next dialog box asks if you want to restore another partition or hard drive from the backup archive, but because you're restoring only your system drive, select No I Do Not and click Next. Finally, you'll see a confirmation dialog box that displays your recovery file, target partition, and restoration partition. If all looks as planned, click Proceed and relax while the software restores your backup image.

After the process is complete, Acronis True Image displays a confirmation dialog box that indicates the software successfully restored your backup. When Acronis True Image then returns to the main dialog box, click Operations and Exit to quit Acronis True Image and restart your system.

Full Steam Ahead

Once you finish restoring your backup to the new hard drive, check to make sure all of your data is intact and everything is operating correctly. If your Windows environment is unstable, you should immediately save all of your files and settings to a backup because you might need to reinstall Windows if your backup software didn't properly restore your backup files. If your backup restoration was successful and you have backups of other partitions contained on that original drive, you can now restore those to your new drive.

The beauty of backup programs that create image files of your hard drive or partition is that they copy the entire file system to the new drive, along with the OS and other files, which means you won't need to endure the hassle of manually formatting and partitioning your drive before you restore the backup file. However, not all backup software is the same, so follow the software's instructions for preparing your new drive before restoration. Also, if you simply create backups that contain only your important files and settings and not an image of your hard drive, you'll need to replace your hard drive, reinstall Windows, install the backup software, and restore your files.

Although you might never encounter a hard drive failure, it's always wise to use your backup software to test your backup files in the event you ever need them. For example, Acronis True Image includes a Check Archive Wizard that inspects the integrity of any of your backup archives to ensure they're fit for action when the need arises. After all, when you lose your hard drive, you won't have the opportunity to create a new backup, so you should always be sure your backup files are ready to go.

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