backing up to an external hard drive

[Guest]

I purchased an 80 gig external hard drive to back up important files like
photos, word documents, etc. I am mildly computer literate. I followed the
instructions to format the ext drive and it's ready to go. Now what? How do
I tell my win XP to move the specicfic files I want to back up? I've gone to
program files-accessories-sys tools and then I'm lost! Thanks for any help!

 

[Peter Wilkins]

I purchased an 80 gig external hard drive to back up important files like
photos, word documents, etc. I am mildly computer literate. I followed the
instructions to format the ext drive and it's ready to go. Now what? How do
I tell my win XP to move the specicfic files I want to back up? I've gone to
program files-accessories-sys tools and then I'm lost! Thanks for any help!

Windows home doesn't automatically install the included backup program
(ntbackup.exe).

If you don't see a "Backup" entry in system tools, then you will have to
install it yourself - it's on the WinXP CD.
To Manually Install the Backup Utility
Insert the CD Rom and navigate to CD-ROM Drive:\VALUEADD\MSFT\NTBACKUP
Double-click the Ntbackup.msi file to start the wizard that installs
Backup. When the wizard is complete, click Finish.

Or, as it's a pretty crappy program, buy yourself a decent one - if
you'd bought a Maxtor OneTouch external HDD it would have come with
Retrospect Express, which isn't bad, but the best one these days seems
to be Acronis True Image. I still use Norton Ghost 2003 - the new Ghost
isn't as reliable imho.

 

[DReamtheater]

Hi Liann,
I think you won't go without program that has intuitive wizard and
prompts.
I guess Acronis True Image
[http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/products/trueimage/] will serve
perfect for you.
Also it has both incremental and differential backup solutions, exactly
for you.
I use it, so it's really easy and convenient.
My best recommendations!