Centralized data management for personal computers (PCs) includes
selectively booting up from a remote disk drive component. Subsequent
copy operations of data blocks from the remote disk drive component to a
local disk drive in a PC can be performed to obtain an updated disk image
from the remote disk. Subsequent copy operations of data blocks from the
local disk drive to the remote disk can be performed to ensure that a
current image of the local disk is maintained on the remote disk.