Laptop Backup: Preparing For a Business Trip

Business trips often means taking your laptop with you. However, traveling greatly increases the risk of your laptop being stolen or damaged. Often, the files stored on the laptop are critical to the success of the trip. To make sure you have a successful trip even if your laptop is stolen or damaged, follow these guidelines:

Before the trip:

1. Make sure you have a complete backup of all the information and files on the computer. A full backup of your data should be the last thing you do before packing the computer into your bag. This backup should stay at home, as it is the ultimate fallback when disaster strikes.

2. Make a separate copy of files that you expect to need on the trip. These could be on a recordable disk or USB thumb drive. This ensures that you have access to these files even if your laptop is stolen or damaged. It also gives you some flexibility to use another computer at your destination in case you need it to access the Internet or a data projector.

This copy should preferably not go into your laptop bag. If the bag is stolen, lost or damaged, you need to be able to get hold of the files.

3. Email critical files to yourself. Using one of the online email services, you can keep a copy of your files online and retrieve them when needed. This could be a real life-saver. However, to make it manageable, do this only for your four or five most critical files.

4. Don't forget your contacts. Synchronize your cellphone or PDA with your computer and export your contact database to a file that can be viewed as plain text. If you need to retrieve any of this information, you do not want to have to import all your contact information into your client's Outlook just to be able to view it.

5. If you can do it easily, scan your tickets and other travel documentation and make it part of the backup. Often the originals are kept with your laptop, so if that is stolen, you at least have some proof to fall back on.

Following these guidelines could change a business disaster into a mere inconvenience. It only takes a couple of minutes, but could mean the difference between success and failure.