I’ve seen factory installed laptops that come with this. In the event of problems they can boot and restore to the ‘factory preset’ … which restores the backup from a hidden recovery partition (overwriting all existing data).

What sort of software would I use or how would I go about creating such a thing?

(I’ve got a laptop without it, it’s a super-light variety with no CD drive and so re-installs are a pain)
??
I’ll mention that I prefer not to use external backup. I specifically want to duplicate the hidden recovery partition functionality (to maintain the super-light aspect of the 1.6pound laptop)

And I’m looking for a walkthrough on using Norton Ghost (or whatever) on achieving this.
AND I do have access (while at home) to the computer using network / floppy and even (once) by removing the harddrive from the laptop and plugging it into my desktop (though I’d rather not do that again if possible).

I have 2 laptops and 1 pc (that I never use) that I want to backup the data on. I am going to use an online service like Carbonite or Mozy but don’t want to pay for an account for each computer. Should I buy one hard drive that I pull from and have it backed up? Or what is the best way to accomplish this?

I have 3 - 250GB external hard drives. I would like to upload all of the data from those hard drives to Online backup so that I do not have to carry the bulky hard drives everywhere and have a peace of mind that all my data is actually secure.

Also, I checked with Carbonite & Mozy’s Unlimited backup plan - they say that their software would only "SYNC" unlimited data from One Computer’s hard drive - so the "Unlimited" is limited to the maximum "Hard Drive Capacity" and I just use laptops (max HDD 320 GB)

Is there any backup service which would allow me to upload almost 1 TB data at a reasonable price?

Is there a software equalent to IBM’s ThinkVantage Active Protection that can be used on other laptops? Basically to protect laptop hard drive from damage in the event of a physical crash of the hard-drive. For example, when you drop your laptop on the flloor, the hard disk shuts down before it hits the ground and essentially saves data.

I’ve had my 5 year old desktop secured with antivirus,spyware,firewall,adware,etc. I just purchased my first laptop & since I’m now wireless, my paranoia has come up. Aside from the usual antivirus/spyware/firewall protection, do I need to get something with "wifi security", "bi-directional firewall", and bluetooth protection(‘bluesnarfing’ and ‘bluejacking’ can allow attackers using easily available software to hack into data held on the laptops, or use the machine as a conduit for other activities)? With all these different security programs I’m starting to wonder if they’re really necessary. I’m running vista ultimate & IE7 (which have protection & encryption), Norton Internet Security, keep my file sharing "off", & I’ll be installing Windows defender and Yahoo’s antispyware. Is this enough to keep my laptop data safe in a public wifi area or do I also have to get more security like the one’s I mentioned above? My apologies for the long post & gratitude to those who took the time.

I am thinking about going wireless and getting my kid’s and self a laptop…what else do I need to know…I know I need a router…and the laptops need to have wireless capacity….is there more to know?

I will have internet access for about 24 hours and then suddenly the router will stop broadcasting the network. I can still see my network listed amoung the Available Networks but my laptops will not connect to it. I cannot see my other computers either. My desktop computer which is connected directly to the internet with cables (thru the router) still has access.

I am using a Netgear WGT624 v3. I have called the company twice. The first time they changed my security setting to WEP instead of WPA-PSK. The second time they changed my MTU Size from 1500 to 1300. Still not working consistently.

Is this a hardware problem? I used to work for a company that set up a wireless network that would shut itself down occassionally because data would get stuck in a never ending loop and overwhelm the system. Not sure how that could happen here but the symptoms are the same.

I want to fully protect my computer and need some advice

I will be using the computer at a University next year

Should I get an Internet security suite (ZoneAlarm or Bit Defender)

or should I just go with Bit Defenders Antivirus and use windows defender with a spyware software like spybot?

suggestions?

I want to base my decision off of which choice will keep my laptops system resources for my use—-not for the security running in the background

How do I keep them from chewing on anything for that matter? They chew on my flipflops, they chewed the antenna off of my alarm clock radio, and just a few minutes ago I found that they chewed on an expensive pair of earphones. The only thing I can think to do is lock them away from everything with just their food, water, litter, and each other but if I have to do that, what is the point of having kittens. It'd be one thing if I could catch them doing it, but I can't. They are so destructive! They also wont quit getting up on the counter and destroying things. (They just broke a very expensive crystal vase that I recieved as a wedding gift) I've tried the water approach but it only works for a couple of minutes. Any suggestions?
I will try the bitter apple stuff, but the main issue is I'm always finding something that I would have never guessed they would chew. My house is also very electronically based… I've always got cords that just run across the floor for laptops of mine or my friends. Since this is the kind of cord you take with you it isn't practical to spray it. Same with my flip flops. Would the stuff come off on my fingers and is it sticky?
They have more toys than any other kittens I know! They have mice, balls, condos, catnip toys… you name it, they have it. They just still insist on the cords. The thing with keeping things out of their reach is that nothing seems to be out of their reach and they dont seem to understand the water thing. They manage to get places that you'd never guess they'd reach. I'm hoping the will grow out of this… I'm starting to wish I had adopted an adult cat. Thanks again for all your help!

I know that there are laptops available on the market that come with built in fingerprint technology. I was just wondering if it could be possible for me to add this fingerprint scanning technology to my base PC for added security?

Any help would be appreciated thanks

Am currently using WEP, but see options for WPA and WPA2. If those are better, how do I set them up and how will other laptops access them? Is it basically the same way? Some examples would be great!

Ok so I've taken the hard drive out of my old (broken) laptop and put it into a Hard Drive Enclosure I just brought so I can access my old data (Music, Pictures etc.) But whenever I try to access files in the "My Documents" section, I get messages telling me I don't have permission to access the folders. I've already read up a bit on the problem and have tried going into the "Properties" of the folder and changing the owner of the folder, but that only lets me look at the files in that folder. I cant play any music files, look at any pictures or copy them over to my new laptops hard drive.

Is there a way I can bypass these security measures altogether? Or am I just going about trying to give myself access the wrong way?

Thanks in advance.

I have a program called Terminus 6 that I use for file destruction purposes. I buy laptops and used servers on ebay quite often and i've been always told to wipe out a harddrive when I receive a used computer because one doesn't actually know what the original user kept on the harddrive.

I use DoD 5220.22-M method for wiping, this is what Terminus 6 says in it's descriptions.

Overwrite Methodologies

Terminus 6 uses overwrite methodology datafiles to determine what to write and what order to write it. The datafile essentially lists the overwrite passes, along with some additional information. Seventeen such datafiles are included with the Terminus distribution.

Selecting the overwrite methodology datafile to use selects how Terminus will destroy data.

If you have specific needs in terms of overwrite patterns, you may want to create a new datafile to provide for those needs. Here's what an overwrite methodology datafile looks like:

[OverwriteMethodology]
Title=The 'DoD Standard' methodology uses two passes of
binary checkerboard patterns, followed by a third pass
of pseudorandom garbage.
Title2=(Compliance: DoD 5220.22-M, S 8.306, Matrix Entry D)
VerifyOV=NO
OVPassData00000001=55
OVPassDesc00000001=Binary Checkerboard (1 of 2)
OVPassData00000002=AA
OVPassDesc00000002=Binary Checkerboard (2 of 2)
OVPassData00000003=–
OVPassDesc00000003=Pseudorandom Garbage (May take some time!)

Each datafile is in Windows-standard INI file format and has a section called [OverwriteMethodology], and within that section are a few Value pieces of information:

Title
The first of two lines of descriptive text, provided for human readability.
Title2
The second of two lines.
VerifyOV
This will be one of two values, YES or NO. If the value is YES, this methodology requires a verify pass once the overwrite is complete.
OVPassData00000001
The first overwrite pass' data. The data is listed as two-character hexadecimal values without any other symbols (FF, E0, 01, etc.), and if more than one such value is provided Terminus will use them as a repeating pattern. If the value is — (two hyphens), Terminus will assume the pass is pseudorandom garbage.
OVPassDesc00000001
The description of the first overwrite pass, provided for human readability.

CAUTION!

OVPassData and OVPassDesc MUST have an eight-digit value following them, and this value must start with one and contain any necessary leading zeroes (i.e., 00000001 for the first pass, 00000002 for the second, and so on.). Each OVPassData entry should have an OVPassDesc entry with a matching number after it. Failure to comply with this numbering standard will make Terminus unstable when it tries to load the file, and may cause a crash.

You can add as many passes as you wish, as Terminus 6 doesn't arbitrarily limit the maximum number of passes. However, the more passes you have the longer a wipe will take, especially if you include one or more pseudorandom passes.

and this is what is listed for Pseudorandom Number Generation

Pseudorandom number generation is something computers historically don't do well. Terminus uses one of the most advanced pseudorandom number generators (or PRNGs) available in a data destruction toolkit.

The three options for the Terminus PRNG relate to the reuse of pseudorandom garbage, the algorithm used to generate the garbage, and entropy polling.

First, reusing pseudorandom garbage…

Terminus can reuse PRNG output for each cluster instead of generating new garbage for each cluster. This sacrifices speed for security, and for high-security environments you must enable the "always regenerate PRNG" option

Next, the pseudorandom generator algorithm setting…

Terminus offers three PRNGs (Pseudo-Random Number Generators): the standard one based on Windows' system timer, the ISAAC algorithm, and the Mersenne-Twister algorithm.

The ISAAC algorithm developed by Bob Jenkins. Terminus uses a very fast implementation of ISAAC written by Michael in der Wiesche.

Even though Terminus' ISAAC and Mersenne-Twister implementation is very fast, they are slower than the built-in PRNG that comes with Windows. If your security needs don't require the additional randomness of the special algorithms, using the standard PRNG will make pseudorandom overwrite passes quite a bit faster.

Finally, entropy polling…

Entropy in this context is data gathered from the computer itself. Terminus can gather random garbage from the machine it's running on, and use that garbage to seed its PRNG. Terminus' method of gathering entropy was designed to make nearly pure randomness without requiring specialized random number generator hardware, and Terminus saves this entropy data in one-megabyte chunks for later use.

To enable entropy gathering, put a check in the "e
"enable entropy polling" box and then give Terminus a number in the "store this many megabytes of entropy" box to tell it how many megabytes of entropy to store.

now according to the article I read on data recovery, apparently this claims that overwriting methods do not actually prevent data from being recovered.

"Data overwritten once or twice may be recovered by subtracting what is expected to be read from a storage location from what is actually read. Data which is overwritten an arbitrarily large number of times can still be recovered provided that the new data isn't written to the same location as the original data (for magnetic media), or that the recovery attempt is carried out fairly soon after the new data was written (for RAM). For this reason it is effectively impossible to sanitise storage locations by simple overwriting them, no matter how many overwrite passes are made or what data patterns are written."

I Installed CA security suite 2007 our two laptops (They run on Vista) and they run fine.

But I tried to install CA security suite 2007 on my desktop and i am have some major problems. Ever since I installed it and the computer was up and running, it would restart on me. Whenever I tried to do something, it restarted on me. This has been happening ever since I installed CA security suite 2007.

I unstalled Macfee and Spy Sweeper. But when I uninstalled them, i had to remove them manueling because the remove program put did not work.

I have vista home premium on my hp laptop.
I wanted to know all i need to get to maintain my laptops security.
like what kind of unti virus, what kind of spy ware and other things.

Well, it started two months after we moved in to our new rented home. We had two smoke alarms and a carbon monoxide detector, one of the smoke alarms newer than the other. We still kept the old one lying around anyway, but it wasn’t until this month did it start beeping shrilly. We tested the rest of the alarms with both still working, but that other one..jeez! Sometimes it will time itself every 5 minutes, one shrill ear-drum-shattering beep at a time, other times the time gap between the beeps is longer, while other times it is more frantic. We checked everywhere for smoke and found nothing amiss. We rarely use electricity from the plugs, we just recharge our phones and laptops and turn it off, we always check our oven and stove, and the other alarms hadn’t given sign yet of impending doom. What the hell is this retarded smoke alarm doing then?

Does anyone know whether this is legal? many thanks.
The school is conducting 'random' searches on pupils laptops that have mostly been bought privately. A few have been bought through the school, but still, would this not mean that the laptop was owned by the pupil?
these laptops connect to the school wireless network.

Some laptops, for instance from Dell, and some PDAs, and some flash drives (such as SanDisk Profile) have a built in fingerprint recognition for security. Can this be hacked? Could a motivated civilian computer geek do it? or would it take heavy-duty resources like FBI or NSA to do so? I keep mildly sensitive files on my flash drive and want to keep these safe if I lose the flash drive. I am computer-challenged and know zilch about security. Any thoughts?

I've had my 5 year old desktop secured with antivirus,spyware,firewall,adware,etc. I just purchased my first laptop & since I'm now wireless, my paranoia has come up. Aside from the usual antivirus/spyware/firewall protection, do I need to get something with "wifi security", "bi-directional firewall", and bluetooth protection(‘bluesnarfing’ and ‘bluejacking’ can allow attackers using easily available software to hack into data held on the laptops, or use the machine as a conduit for other activities)? With all these different security programs I'm starting to wonder if they're really necessary. I'm running vista ultimate & IE7 (which have protection & encryption), Norton Internet Security, keep my file sharing "off", & I'll be installing Windows defender and Yahoo's antispyware. Is this enough to keep my laptop data safe in a public wifi area or do I also have to get more security like the one's I mentioned above? My apologies for the long post & gratitude to those who took the time.

I've had my 5 year old desktop secured with antivirus,spyware,firewall,adware,etc. I just purchased my first laptop & since I'm now wireless, my paranoia has come up. Aside from the usual antivirus/spyware/firewall protection, do I need to get something with "wifi security", "bi-directional firewall", and bluetooth protection(‘bluesnarfing’ and ‘bluejacking’ can allow attackers using easily available software to hack into data held on the laptops, or use the machine as a conduit for other activities)? With all these different security programs I'm starting to wonder if they're really necessary. I'm running vista ultimate & IE7 (which have protection & encryption), Norton Internet Security, keep my file sharing "off", & I'll be installing Windows defender and Yahoo's antispyware. Is this enough to keep my laptop data safe in a public wifi area or do I also have to get more security like the one's I mentioned above? My apologies for the long post & gratitude to those who took the time.