Could anybody be kind enough to give me a few pointers on the first simple
process of backing up my data on my PC? I am knowing how to burn data to a
CD, but am wondering how others backup data both on their pc and off.
Is there some simple way to backup everything on XP that allows you then
back that up. Instead of laboriously having to backup each and every file
In Summary is there a simpler way than that which I am currently doing it at
the moment which is: Basically manually copy everything I want to a file
labelled bakup, and burning it to a CD, is this the most simple and best way
to backup data?
Thanks in advance and any suggestions or tips appreciated
What you are thinking of is called incremental backup. Most backup
programs allow this. You can back up a single file, or a few
files, to your existing complete backup.
I don't use it. Too complicated, too much chance of screwing
something up when you need it the most. I've tried every kind of
backup there is, and this is what I've learned.
Forget about the backup program that comes with Windows XP. It is
not very good. Forget about restore points. They chew up a sorry
amount of hard drive space and don't do what you want when you
need them. They aren't a replacement for a backup program in any
case. I suggest turning restore off entirely.
The best backup is a compressed mirror image of the entire boot
drive. Put your important files on the boot drive, and regularly
back the entire thing up using either Drive Image or Ghost.
Recently Symantic bought out Drive Image, so Ghost is the only
player, although you can still get old copies of Drive Image 7, as
I did.
Don't bother backing up to tape or CDs or DVDs, they are too damn
slow and too awkward. Back up to another hard drive, either
internal or external. External drives have the advantage that you
can turn them off or remove them, making it less likely they will
get infected with a virus. They have the disadvantage of being
slower to write to or read from.
For me, using Drive Image, a full compressed backup of my C drive,
which presently has 42.5 gigs on it, takes under half an hour. I
make rotating backups, so that if the last one is corrupted by a
virus, the previous one is likely to be clean.
I also back up my data files, uncompressed, to folders on a second
internal hard drive as I create them. That is, important files get
backed up when they get saved. This prevents loss of data due to
the backup mirror being out of date. Sure, it's a bit of work to
do this manually, but you always know what is happening that way.
At irregular intervals, it's not a bad idea to burn a mirror of
your drive to a set of DVDs, just to have an external backup to go
to if all your internal drives are corrupted or destroyed or lost
for some reason. I do this, but don't do it that frequently, since
flipping DVD disks is a chore. Rewritable DVDs are best for this.
