. . but that's more credit to the hard disk drive makers than anyone else. Makers of Windows software have also adapted to crashing frequrently and their data handling seems remarkably tolerant.

Of course, many of these Win98 based businesses have been forced by their business software vendors to put in Windows NT or 2000 servers (generally running the workstation version of the OS), or if I had anything to say about it, they have a Linux server.

Bigest problem for data is the cost of backup systems. A tape drive (the only practical backup method for most), software and a weeks worth of tapes costs a lot more than the computer it's put in. The result is many small businesses really have no backup.

To get around the cost problem, I promote DAT tape, which certainly isn't the most reliable, but the tapes are cheap. (< $10 vs. > $30 for everything else) and reconditioned drives which cost less than half new. This keeps the cost low enough I can acutally talk them into buying it.

Getting them to use the backup system is the next problem. Someone has to change the tape daily and check the verify logs now and then to see if it's actually working.

Fortunately, NovaStore makes $50 software mere users can actually understand and use. A lot of the backup packages out there are so obtuse I can barely understand them myself, and they're totally inpenetrable to a business person.

And then I have clients like "Anal Stew" (alternatively "Stupid Stew"). OS/2 on all the workstations (no crash, no virus, no slimeware, no hackers, no Kazaa, no games, and the users don't "personalize" it), and two Linux servers, one of which is stand-by, automatically backed up to daily, tape backup on both servers autorun every night and checked every morning, all media locked in huge fireproof safe, and backups of critical data made to Zip 250 disk and taken home where there's a live recovery system just in case.