Tweet
A previous posting in "Learn Something New Every Day" caught my attention, thus this new thread. The previous posting gave a hint on backing up your computer. OK, so now my question. What do you find to be the easiest method of backing up your computer harddrive? Do you even need to back up the whole hard drive? (I just back up individual files, not the whole harddrive.) I use Windows XP. Any suggestions? And please, keep it simple, I hate fussing with computers because I find the more I fuss the more problems I have. I have tons of important "work" on my computer which I'd hate to loose, but at the same time I'm fearful of screwing up what "isn't broke".
-
-
Re: Harddrive backup needed?
I don't have a backup, and I know I should. A friend picked up one of those external backup hard drives, but I'm not keen on the idea because the one he got was for backup only and not a plain old extra drive. I'm tempted to get an external drive and make it mirror my primary drive. Is that a workable idea? -
Re: Harddrive backup needed?
I believe the internal drive, at least in macs must be the primary drive.
You can format it so the system software, the startup junk, is on an external. but I keep all my main junk on original internal 75 GB drive and i have 4 external lacie drives, each holding 500 GB. multimedia and video requiring tons o space as they do...
just whip down to CompUsa and grab an external maxtor at 200 bux or so for 200GB.
that's the norm; a buck per GB. or less if ya can find it.Comment
-
Re: Harddrive backup needed?
Thats an excellent question SouthKona,
I just backed up my entire system this morning. An easy way to accomplish this is to use a software package called Norton Ghost. This will save everything on your computer. And in the event of a systems failure, it will restore your entire system exactly how it was before the crash. What is really cool is that you can save these images to either dvd's, or cd's.
FYI-- It costs around $50 - $60, but it is well worth the money.
Comment
-
Re: Harddrive backup needed?
mirror is good protection for hardrive failure(in a raid config)but your backup would be still open to infection.Exturnal drives you manualy shove files in are nice because you can shut off the power and make them virus proof
For back up the ultimate is an image of the entire drive stored safe,then regular file backups that can be added after the image is restored to bring you up to date or close too anyway.
For the avarage user a good idea is have your shop or geek friend make a backup image of the entire drive(store it on DVD) in case of a big infection or hard drive failure it would be cheaper and better (no minor glitches that can be left after an infection is cleaned) to restore the image(30 minutes).Otherwise you got to reload /update xp,install all your drivers/programs reset all your prefrences(3-6hours).Your minor backups can go on a cd to add to the image once it's restored.
Oh Kimo got a deal you may not know about.You can buy USB 2.0 box's that will fit any hard drive for about $30.You will not find them in mainstream shops cause they like the markup of the all in one setup.
cheers!Comment
-
Re: Harddrive backup needed?
like some of you, i just use an external hard drive to save files that are important. the norton ghost idea sounds good tho i've never bothered to do it yet. i should probably look into it. never had a major crash where i had to reinstall everything but of course that doesn't mean that it can't/won't happen.
fondoo, i'm not sure if i'm misreading what you wrote but if you meant backing up the whole hard drive to dvds, that'll mean a lot of dvds, depending on how large the drive is. is that what you meant? if so, perhaps you'd at least recommend rewriteable dvds?525,600 minutes, 525,000 moments so dear. 525,600 minutes - how do you measure, measure a year?Comment
-
Re: Harddrive backup needed?
couple of choices,since the image is great for keeping the os,drivers,programs/settings intact and ready to reinstall in one lump you can move your big movie files or whatever is taking up so much room off your drive to do the image,or use several dvd's standard dvd's hold 4.5 gigs and if you have a newer writer and want to spend the extra money on bigger capacity media they go up to around 8 gigs (been awhile since I looked)Standard dvd media is pretty cheap with rewritable being much more and slower write speads.
Like you said it's not like you crash all the time so you dont need to do lots of images,I suggest putting it to disk because a seperate drive can fail from getting dropped or just moved around alot
been awhile since I really geeked out so my idea of pricing can be off(stuff gets about 6% cheaper every month)Comment
-
Re: Harddrive backup needed?
Where to begin on this topic. First of all while the concept of backing up is simple and kind of important thing to do, doing it on the other hand is really depend on the users' skill level and what's available on that computer.Originally posted by SouthKona
First of all do you know where all your files are located? Is it located in the My Documents folder or do you have the important files stored on the Windows Desktop? Does the application(s) that you use allow you to store your work where you want to or does it place it in a place that only the application can get to?
I take it your computer has USB ports but does it have Firewire as well?
Do you know how much disk space your files take up? Do you have a CD or DVD burner available on your system? Maybe a Zip Drive? Are you thinking of getting an external hard drive for your computer? Do you have the original media for your application programs?Comment
-
Re: Harddrive backup needed?
hi fondoo, in my particular case, i'd never back up my whole hard drive to dvds cuz it'd involve way too many disks (about 300 gigs divided by 4.5 gigs (approximate, of course, for a standard blank dvd) = 66 dvds!
i back up my data (music, pics, pdfs, web pages, etc) to my external drive about once a week cuz that stuff changes pretty frequently. what i haven't done (but it's an idea i like) is making a backup copy of my hard drive's os, drivers, apps, etc in case of a meltdown.
been meaning to look into stuff like ghost, etc but have been putting it off. been too busy reading about shawn ching (he's the devil! no, he's not! oh yes he is!)
525,600 minutes, 525,000 moments so dear. 525,600 minutes - how do you measure, measure a year?Comment
-
Re: Harddrive backup needed?
shave when you get a chance and a few $$ think about getting another drive,one for os and programs and one for your big phat files If you really have 300 gigs of stuff you dont want to loose you shouldn't have an active os and it powered up all the time.just my .02
cheers!Comment
-
Re: Harddrive backup needed?
howzit fondoo and thanks for your always helpful comments. my pc actually has three drives: one for the os and programs and the other two for data so i have no excuse for not making a ghost copy of the drive that has the os/programs... except that damn shawn ching threads keeps going and going! ha! ha! as scriv pointed out, he finally got himself an alias and is now going to perpetuate that thread with everything to glorify that newscaster!525,600 minutes, 525,000 moments so dear. 525,600 minutes - how do you measure, measure a year?Comment
-
Re: Harddrive backup needed?
OK, I'm going to respond to Helen, who answered my question(s) in LANGUAGE I CAN UNDERSTAND.
Where to begin on this topic. First of all while the concept of backing up is simple and kind of important thing to do, doing it on the other hand is really depend on the users' skill level and what's available on that computer.
First of all do you know where all your files are located? Yes.
Is it located in the My Documents folder or do you have the important files stored on the Windows Desktop? All are in "My Documents".
Does the application(s) that you use allow you to store your work where you want to or does it place it in a place that only the application can get to? Where I want, and I always choose "My Documents".
I take it your computer has USB ports but does it have Firewire as well? Yes, USB ports and yes, Firewall.
Do you know how much disk space your files take up? Only 20 %.
Do you have a CD or DVD burner available on your system? Maybe a Zip Drive? CD only.
Are you thinking of getting an external hard drive for your computer? No, I just want to make backups as simply as possible, and only for my documents.
Do you have the original media for your application programs? Yes.
Thanks Helen, for taking on my question. Please, anyone who might try to help me, I really don't know anything about computers other than how to run the programs I use. And, I'll admit I don't want to learn. (But there really are other subjects I'm interested in, just not computers....) Thanks to everyone who has tried to help me so far, it's just that I am very limited in the "how and whys" of computers. "Turn it on, type up project, done." That's my limit.Comment
-
Re: Harddrive backup needed?
I do a monthly backup of all the files that I either created as new or revised since the last backup to CDs. Depending on the type of files like photos, I'll make extra copies of the CDs and on my next trip to the Big Island to visit my folks, I take the extra discs with me for storage there.
It's also a good idea to check the discs or other backup files you made to see if they can be played back on your computer. Better to know now when you make the backup than later when you need it... only to find out the disc is unreadable or something.
I am still uncertain about the longevity of CD and DVD media.
That said some of the real important stuff like work in progress I also back up to my laptop, an older computer and to whatever USB flash memory device I have lying around and that has space on it.
Finally it is a good idea to also know where all your original CD discs are for programs you own because in case of catastrophic failure you are going to need those as well as any code numbers needed to re-install and activate the programs. You may also want to save those applications that you also bought as downloads as well as their acitivation numbers if any. I back those up on CD too.
I'm sure some of these tips have already been outlined in previous posts, but I thought I'd just share some of what I do in this area.I'm still here. Are you?
Comment
-
Re: Harddrive backup needed?
Do you know much space in megabytes (or Mbytes or MB) your stuff takes up? Without knowning how big your disk drive is 20% doesn't say much. And you do have a CD-burner. The most you can burn on one CD disc is between 680 to 700 megabytes.
By any chance do you know how to copy and paste files in Windows XP?Comment
-
Re: Harddrive backup needed?
Hi Helen. I'm sure there is a way of finding out about the space, as I've seen a nice little "pie graph" on my computer somewhere that showed it. Beats the heck out of me how to find it when I want it though (like now). Already I'm about out of the mood to even keep trying at this. Which is why I've never figured it all out before, I get really lost really quickly and then think, "Heck, I don't need to backup anyway".Originally posted by helen
And if you mean can I copy and paste a document, yes. Copy and paste a "file" - nope, but I do know how to move a file.
Comment
Comment