Back Up

[stwat]

Having recently lost lots of data when my PC went **** up and thinking lots of my data was stored up in the cloud, only to find when I tried to get it back that I simply couldn't get it back no matter what I tried. Wrong passwords, email addy's etc etc

What is the best way to safeguard your computers data? How does one go about backing up all your data direct from your PC ?

Please do help us non IT peeps to keep all our pics vids and music files safe

 

[John]

Personally, I use memory sticks and backup only my important data to them (two sticks), as well as a secondary hard disk in my PC, which is predominantly for music, but has plenty of room.

You can buy a 32GB for peanuts these days.

I store them in a hidden location.

I then backup more regularly to the second disk and periodically to the memory sticks.

If my PC completely dies, it doesn't matter to me.

 

[balge]

As above, or just buy a decent external hard drive and keep it just for long term storage, copy over anything you want to back-up, voila, stored copy available from any PC if yours gets hit by lightning, eaten by the dog etc

Assuming you don't want to back up your system, just data

cheers

 

[raymont]

I use an external hard drive and the Windows 7 back up / restore facility.

Simple to use and let's you create a complete system image if you want to.

Choice is driven somewhat by the size of the data you want to back up. Memory sticks are fine for relatively small amounts but if you have,e.g. high res image files, then you need something bigger like an external drive.

 

[Colin_b]

I use an external hard drive and the Windows 7 back up / restore facility.

Simple to use and let's you create a complete system image if you want to.

Choice is driven somewhat by the size of the data you want to back up. Memory sticks are fine for relatively small amounts but if you have,e.g. high res image files, then you need something bigger like an external drive.

This works well. Personally, I'd have 2 USB drives and alternate them. Keep the one not being used somewhere safe.

Also check the backups are readable....

 

[Chrishazle]

I think the first safety here is (assuming you only have one HDD in your machine) partition it if it's big enough, install a second HDD if it's not.

Then - install all your software on the primary (C) drive BUT make sure all your documents etc are on the secondary (D) drive. It's a bit of a pfaff telling windows you want "My Documents" on D, telling Windows Mail your store folder location is D, but it does mean that a crash only affects the software drive, not the "My Info" drive.

Then get a decent sized USD external hard drive - you can get 1Gig for about £50-60 these days (Ebuyer, Dabs, Aria) and periodically copy the D drive to the USB drive.