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| 1. What is a computer virus? |
| A computer virus is a program designed to spread itself by first infecting executable files or the system areas of hard and usb pens and then making copies of itself. Viruses usually operate without the knowledge of the computer user. |
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| 2. What kind of files can spread viruses? |
| Viruses have the potential to infect any type of executable code, not just the files that are commonly called 'program files'. Some viruses infect executable code in the boot sector or in system areas of hard drives. And it's possible for HTML documents containing JavaScript or other types of executable code to spread viruses or other malicious code. |
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| 3. How do viruses spread? |
| When you execute program code that's infected by a virus, the virus code will also run and try to infect other programs, either on the same computer or on other computers connected to it over a network. |
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| When you share a copy of an infected file with other computer users, running the file will also infect their computers; and files from those computers may spread the infection to yet more computers. |
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| If your computer is infected with a boot sector virus, the virus tries to write copies of itself to the system areas of hard disks and usb pens. Then the infected usb pens may infect other computers that boot from them, and the virus copy on the hard disk. |
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| 4. What do viruses do to computers? |
| Viruses are software programs, and they can do the same things as any other programs running on a computer. The actual effect of any particular virus depends on how it was programmed by the person who wrote the virus. |
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| Some viruses are deliberately designed to damage files or otherwise interfere with your computer's operation, while others don't do anything but try to spread themselves around. But even the ones that just spread themselves are harmful, since they damage files and may cause other problems in the process of spreading. |
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| Note that viruses can't do any damage to hardware: they won't melt down your CPU, burn out your hard drive, cause your monitor to explode. Warnings about viruses that will physically destroy your computer are usually hoaxes. |
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| 5. Do you really need to backup? |
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| Before you even think of buying a backup program you really should ask yourself a critical question: |
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| "If my PC was stolen tomorrow what data would I really miss?" |
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| Now some folks, a very few I suspect, would be able to answer "I wouldn't really miss anything." |
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| If that's your honest opinion then you don't need a backup program. You might as well exit this site now and use your time more productively. |
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| However most people would give answers like: |
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| * I'd miss my Word Documents |
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| * I'd miss my Pictures |
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| * I'd miss my Music |
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| * I'd miss all my downloaded programs |
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| Those who use a Computer to run a business might answer: |
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| * I'd miss my invoices |
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| * I'd miss my customer list |
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| * I'd miss my spreadsheets |
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| * I'd miss my product catalog |
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| * I'd miss my tax records |
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| and much more ... |
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| Backup is about protecting this valuable data so that you can get it back quickly and without errors. |
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| And you can lose it in many different ways. Theft, fire, storm damage as we saw from those storms in perth back in march 2010. But probably the most common way is computer failure - hard disk failure in particular. |
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| If your hard disk crashes, there's a good chance that all the data on the disk has been lost forever. If you haven't got a copy, it's gone. Simple as that. |
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| If you can't bear such a loss, you'd better get serious about backing up. Unfortunately, hard disk crashes happen all too regularly. |
