Summary

Chapter 5: Fundamental Operating Systems 161of differential backups without having to rearchive the entire contents of the drive. If youhave to perform a system restore, you would have to first restore the last full backup, thenrestore every incremental backup in order, and then restore any differential backups madesince the last incremental backup.Differential BackupA differential backup backs up all the files and folders that have been created or modifiedsince either the last normal backup or the last incremental backup. The differential backupdoes not mark the files as having been archived. Copies will be made from the same startingpoint until the next incremental or full backup is performed. Making differential backupsis important because only the last full and differential backups are needed to restore allthe data.Daily BackupDaily backups only back up the files that are modified on the day of the backup. Dailybackups do not modify the archive bit.To access the daily backup utility on a Windows XP Professional system, use the followingpath:Start > All Programs > Accessories > System Tools > BackupBackup MediaThere are many types of backup media available for computers:■■■■Tape drives are devices that are used for data backup on a network server drive. Tapesdrives are an inexpensive way to store a lot of data.The Digital Audio Tape (DAT) tape standard uses 4-mm digital audiotapes to store datain the Digital Data Storage (DSS) format.Digital Linear Tape (DLT) technology offers high-capacity and relatively high-speedtape backup capabilities.USB flash memory can hold hundreds of times the data that a floppy disk can hold.USB flash memory devices are available in many capacities and offer better transferrates than tape devices.Lab 5.6.3: Windows Registry Backup and RecoveryIn this lab, you will back up a computer registry. You will also perform a recovery of acomputer registry. The registry is also called System State data. Refer to the lab in ITEssentials: PC Hardware and Software Labs and Study Guide, Third Edition (ISBN 1-58713-198-6). You can perform this lab now or wait until the end of the chapter.