What am I going to forget?

[davidjpowell]

My laptop that I use for work is becoming increasingly slow.

My fault for loading too much junk, but now it's time to cut back, reformat and reinstall W7.

So the big question is what am I going to forget to backup this time?

I've found my Win 7 upgrade code so I can at least upgrade it....

This could be fun.

 

[@MARK]

Might be worth looking at how you store your important stuff.

In my case, my documents are stored in Google Docs, photos with Smugmug, stuff in Dropbox and so on. If you have a Mac then all of this can be done (in a fashion) with iCloud.

It meant that when I reinstalled my Netbook a few weeks ago, I didn't actually have any data to restore and thus nothing to forget or loose.

 

[renault12ts]

The problem with Cloud storage, (if that's all you have) is the inability to see anything without an internet connection.

 

[DSM10000]

I would not worry about any drivers etc, it is a good opportunity to get the latest versions after re-installing the OS.

 

[@MARK]

The problem with Cloud storage, (if that's all you have) is the inability to see anything without an internet connection.

Hence things like Dropbox, Sugarsync, Skydrive etc etc etc

Plus things like iCloud and Google Docs now have offline capability

A lot will depend on how often you are working with your laptop offline. For many people this is hardly ever.

 

[davidjpowell]

I have a (elderly) SBS 2003 server and this used to keep track of all of my documents with folder redirection, before Windows 7 broke it.

Most documents are on the server, with the exceptions of videos, and music.

Time before last I lost the music. Last time it was my shortcuts.

This time....!

 

[neilz]

I just store everything on my website server, I can use FTP to retrieve them (or Network Neighbourhood/My Network Places/whatever they call it now if on the home network). That's far less likely to go down - the components are old but it's in perfect help and I use a tape drive to make scheduled backups on it.

 

[widewalt]

Before upgrading use Macrium Reflect Free and make a complete image backup of your current hard drive onto an external hard drive or second internal hard disk.

Do your upgrade, reinstall Macrium and you'll be able to mount the image as a virtual drive and have full access to all your data.

Another option would be to install a new hard disk and create a virtual machine out of your old disk and mount it as a virtual PC within your new PC

 

[John]

I would not worry about any drivers etc, it is a good opportunity to get the latest versions after re-installing the OS.

Except network adapter - unless you have access to another computer!

Before upgrading use Macrium Reflect Free and make a complete image backup of your current hard drive onto an external hard drive or second internal hard disk.

Do your upgrade, reinstall Macrium and you'll be able to mount the image as a virtual drive and have full access to all your data.

Another option would be to install a new hard disk and create a virtual machine out of your old disk and mount it as a virtual PC within your new PC

+1

 

[Colin_b]

I'd consider installing a solid state disk drive. Makes anything involving disk I/O very quick.

 

[davidjpowell]

All done and dusted over Christmas. What did I forget? Not yet sure. My CAD software has gone astray, but I'm pretty sure its on the server when I bother to connect. I did mess my music library up again, but Match appears to have worked well, so I deleted the lot and downloaded a fresh copy.

lappie is much faster, and will hopefully remain so.

 

[John]

It is because you installed lots of shyteware.

Windows will gradually bloat over time but add/remove programs exacerbates the issue much more quickly.