However, your satisfaction of making a fresh start with a new computer is tempered by fact that all of your "stuff" is still on your old computer. Everything that made your old computer YOUR computer: your personal settings, your business files, your company spreadsheets are still loaded on your old computer.

You find yourself with a new computer that's not so great without a whole lot of useful file information that is still stored on your old computer. How are you going to get all of that information onto your new computer?

The process is called "data migration" and it can be a tedious and time-consuming task for you and your business.

Here are some suggestions to make this data migration go a little easier for you.

CDs

One option is to copy ("burn") everything to recordable CDs.

Blank CDs are cheap, at about $1 apiece, and can hold more than 600 megabytes each. That much storage space should be enough for most small businessess to transfer old data files from one hard drive to a new.

Two drawbacks to CD method of data transfer are that:

~ It may take a while to burn each CD and ~ That you may not have a recordable CD drive on your old PC.

Recordable CD units are standard on newer PCs but if older computers have a CD unit, it was insatlled as later add-on hardware feature. Thus, depending on age of your older computer, it may not have a recordable CD drive installed at all. To install a recordable CD drive on your older computer now, may be more of a time-consuming effort when compared with other alternatives to moving your data files.

Portable Drives

Iomega has a pre-packaged solution designed to bridge gap between old and new computers. They offer a software "moving kit" for individuals who have recently bought a new computer with Microsoft's Windows XP.

The software works with Iomega Zip, Jaz and Peerless drives. It allows individuals to "pack" files they have on their old computer onto a portable high-capacity disks and then "unpack" same files onto your new computer.

The transfer software uses Microsoft's "files & settings transfer wizard," a feature included in Windows XP.

After connecting a high-capacity drive to your old computer, you need to download transfer tool, which primes a disk to prompt you to begin transfer process next time it is inserted into a drive. Setting up disk also requires a CD with Windows XP operating system.

Keep in mind, software moving kits, have ability to move everything. Thus, if you are not aware of what files that you are transferring, you may be transferring unneeded problem or virus files to your new computer.

Link Transfers

There are other options if you do not want to shuffle CDs or portable drives.

Some high-tech risks require high-tech responses. Others call for more common-sense measures. A well-considered, disciplined approach to computer security may be all that you need to significantly reduce risks to your computer system.

What does computer security mean? From a business point of view, computer security simple means that your computer systems will function and your stored information on your computer system will be available to you as needed for your business.

Hardware Failure

Precautions can be taken to protect against certain risks such as: theft, breakage, power surges, voltage fluctuation, outages, and disasters including fire, flood and other unthinkable catastrophes. Maintenance agreements provide fast and reliable service in event of equipment breakdown.

Extra equipment provides in-house backup for uninterrupted service until repairperson arrives. Many firms buy inexpensive mail-in or carry-in maintenance and maintain extra hardware to swap in as needed. For example, they keep one backup printer for every five printers in use and one backup PC for every 20, depending, of course, on age and reliability of hardware. Redundant Array of Independent Disks (RAID)-equipped servers and duplicate or backup servers can add redundancy and reduce risk of being shut down by equipment failure.

The quality of low-cost computer or server "clones" may be significantly lower than that of brand-name systems. Extremely low-cost systems often are made with whatever less costly components are available at moment. Such components may be inherently less reliable, and compatibility of specific components used may not be rigorously tested.

Regular backups, with at least a weekly copy of backed-up data kept off-site are, of course, a necessity and most effective way to minimize data loss when inevitable hardware breakdowns occur.

Careful disaster planning is more crucial than ever to assess risks and damage of catastrophic system failure and implementation of appropriate disaster recovery resources. Full duplicate off-site systems including servers, data and communications links may be necessary to assure continuation of service without interruption in event of catastrophic disaster. Such redundancy can be farmed-out to a local firm that specialist in backup and safe storage of your critical computer system data. Generally, expense of full-system redundancy often is unnecessary for small businesses. For you, as long as none of your stored data is lost, restoring your system functions within several hours or even several days may be tolerable.

Software Failure