Making Recovery Lists
In my recent recovery test, I found that not having a good checklist to follow really hurt my ability to recover my backup quickly. A lot of the things I got hung up on I had though, "Oh, I'll remember that when the time comes." It turned out that, in fact, no, I didn't remember, or I didn't remember everything. In the heat of the moment, I didn't always remember all the steps involved in, say, setting up my printer or which applications I had installed. That's why I think making a couple of lists and cheat sheets now can go a long way in helping you when the time comes to get back up and running.
So what lists should you make?
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What equipment needs special set up on the new computer?
For me, this is things like my printer and wireless internet. By having a list written out with all the steps involved and the drivers my operating system need in one place, I can quickly get these set up without having to remember every step needed along the way. If you have any special equipment that will need configured, have a step by step process of how to get it set up on a new computer.
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What applications do I need to install?
As I said in the application backup post, make a list of all your installed applications and locations (either web addresses or location in your backup) of where to download them. You'll also need a list of license keys written up in a text file in your remote backup. If you do have a fire, you won't be able to go back to the CD to find the key.
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What special things do I need to do to get back to my current state?
I have a network drive share on my laptop that I use to share video with a couple of other computers in the house. I had forgotten how involved this was to set up and so I wrote all the steps down this time and put it on Dropbox. Any complicated set up like this should be written down and stored in your remote backup so that you won't have to spend the time to figure it out again.
If this was a real recovery, and not just a planned test, I would have gotten myself in a slight panic over all the things I couldn't remember how to do. The number one reason this test took six hours was because of all the little things I just forgot about.
Now, all of these lists have gone straight into my Dropbox under a recovery folder, including any special drivers I need for my printer and scanner. Next time, I should be able to run through these lists a lot quicker to get my computer back up and running.
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