We have introduced the Blackhawk Backup Service. The Service provides a bi-annual encrypted imaging of the hard drive in your computer, the storage of the secure image on our multi-terabyte server and the commitment to reinstall that image in the event you suffer the failure or irretreivable corruption of your hard drive.

The Reasoning Behind the Service

Residential compter users can accumulate vast amounts of photos, music, text documents, and other data on their home computer at considerable expense of time and money. We see little effort at backing up this information, despite the availability of hardware and software products. The reason for this is two-fold. First, people are busy and backing-up computers is never a high priority. Secondly, people are many times intimidated by the effort involved and where the effort is made are many cases unsure that the backup was made successfully. In any case, backup efforts generally involve photos and text documents only. It is rare for a residential user to be using imaging software. Single computer homes have the related problem of where to store the image. While the preferred solution to this is to use an external hard drive in an enclosure connected to the computer by USB or Firewire, we only see this occasionally. Obviously, there is also the cost of the imaging software, the hard drive and the enclosure to be considered.

We believe our Backup Service prodcuts addresses these issues.

Backup Serice Details

• We come to your home to do the backup. We link an external hard drive to the customer's hard drive and make an image of that drive using a laptop computer. At the point where an encryption key/password is needed, the customer types in a such key/password into the laptop out of the sight of Blackhawk personnel. The image is then made and the equipment is disconnected.
• The encrypted backup image is then transferred from the external hard drive to Blackhawk's multi-terabyte server located at our home in Leroy Township.
• The customer will be provided a folder with the contract covering the Service and a form for writing down the key/password.
• If the customer loses the key/password, it will be impossible to use the backup image in the event that is needed.
• Approximately six months after the first backup, a second backup procedure is carried out similar to the first backup, except that Blackhawk will only retain the second backup image for the remaining time in the contract (approximately six months).
• As part of the Service, Blackhawk is committed to one backup image reinstallation over the one-year period of the contract at no additional cost. The reinstallation can be to the original hard drive or a replacement drive.
• Second and any subsequent backup image reinstallations will be done for our standard residential service charge.
• Backup image reinstallations are not guaranteed to be successful, though in the vast majority of the cases there are no problems. Blackhawk will use its best effort to sucessfully reinstall the image.
• Even where an image cannot be restored, usually because of hard drive sector corruption at the time the image is made, all of the text documents, photos, music and other personal files will still be available after being unencrypted. Blackhawk will transfer these files to any applicable device specifed by the customer.