User Guide

Using Student Survival Kit
26 Student Survival Kit
Valuable and vulnerable disk organizational structure information is also
storedinvariousplacesonaharddrive.Thisincludesthebootsector,partition
tables, directories, the FAT (file allocation table), and other structural
components. These structural components are used by Windows to find data
onthedrive,organize it, andsoon.Ifany oneofthesecomponentsisdamaged
ordestroyed,youwill not be ableto access the datayou’ve stored on thedrive.
The FAT, your drive’s roadmap, points to the locations where your files are
physically stored on the drive. Files can either be stored in contiguous
locations or scattered in pieces in different places. Since files are not always
stored contiguously, the FAT information becomes even more indispensable
thanif files werestoredoneafteranother, endtoend.Ifa drive’sfileallocation
table becomes corrupt or scrambled (such as may be caused by a virus), your
computer will be unable to find and assemble all the pieces of your files. This
is true even if all the files’ data still exists.
Protected Volume Files (The Ultimate Backup Protection)
Safe & Sound lets you create backup sets in protected volume files, which is
thesafestandpreferredtypeofbackup.Aprotectedvolumefileisasectioned-off
area of the drive, sometimes called a logical drive. Safe & Sound’sprotected
volumefileshavesomeveryspecialcharacteristicsthatletSafe&Sound
reconstruct backup files sector by sector, even if the drive’sstandardFATis
damaged or completely lost. In fact, files can be largely reconstructed even if
large parts of the drive are unreadable or erased.
The protected volume file also includes enough information in each directory
entrytocompletelyreconstructafile’sentiredirectorytreeevenifallitsparent
nodes are erased.
Safe & Sound provides internal redundancy in the protected volume file
backupsyoucreate.Itdoesthisbymarkingeachsectorofeachfilethatitbacks
up with identifying information about the sector’s contents and the file that
sector belongs to. Each sector in a protected volume file contains enough
information to allow files to be reconstructed from their individual sectors.
Why You Should Make Regular Backups With Safe & Sound
Your data is very valuable and costly to recreate. This means that making
frequentor evenmirror backupcopies of the importantdata on yourdrives is
crucial.Amirror backupcopyis alwaysidenticaltotheoriginal informationon
thesourcedrive.