It is the fear that every PC owner has lurking at the back of the mind: what if my computer crashes or a virus wipes out or corrupts all of my data? Since most of us don't perform backups as often as we should, the resulting nightmare is barely worth imagining.

Although there are plenty of backup and restore packages on the market, Origin Storage's Back2Normal is specifically designed for use with external hard drives, as these are increasingly popular when it comes to data storage.

The method used is a sector-by-sector image backup, which is an all-in-one process, copying the entire operating system, registry settings, applications, personal settings, data, configuration files, etc. This is a major boon if you have a catastrophic crash and would normally have to spend several frustrating hours reinstalling operating systems and office packages before you begin file recovery.

The boxed version also supplies a Bare Metal Restore CD to boot the PC and recover the data from the backup disk to the PC (or this can be handled online if you buy the downloadable version). After installing the software, you're immediately asked if you want to perform a primary backup.

If you agree then the Wizard provides you with three options: Image Backup, which performs an exact copy and saves to a single image file; Image Backup with Incrementals, which automatically adds any new or changed data; and Disk to Disk with Incrementals, which creates a clone and makes a bootable backup disk.

Once you've made your choice, you decide which drive you want to save and where to save it, whether you want to include standard, medium or high compression, and then initiate the operation. You can also schedule further backups to take place and decide whether they're driven by events such as shutdown, restart or logging on.

A wide range of PC storage devices is supported, including hard disks (IDE, SCSI, SATA), FireWire (IEEE-1394), USB (1.0, 1.1 and 2.0), PCMCIA Card removable media disks, CD-R/RW, DVD-RW, DVD+R/RW disks, Magneto-optical disks and even Iomega Zip and Jaz disks.

Obviously, if you're performing a Full Image backup then you need to have enough space to store all of the files and folders you want to keep, as well as space for the operating system, as your copy is as large as the total used space on the disk.

This is ultimately preferable to the Disk to Disk method, as that type of backup cannot be compressed, encrypted or password protected, and the backup size is equal to that of the source computer's drive. On the other hand, with the Disk to Disk method you do end up with a boot disk which will enable you to resume your work at relatively short notice.

Once the backup is complete, you can view a log, while a Verify Data function compares and verifies the integrity of backed up files with the files on the source disk.

This is a simple, straightforward and effective means of giving you peace of mind when it comes to data backup and restore, and if you still manage to get confused then free technical support is available via telephone and online.

A no-nonsense approach to data backup and restore with clearly labelled instructions, a wide range of supported disk formats, three secure methods of encryption and the automatic saving of all operating systems and applications, though you will have to allow plenty of space and time.