Backing up files - Here's a stupid question

In the six or so years that I've owned computers, I've never backed up my computer (except to make a restore disk at the time I bought it). So I thought, time to back up this 160 gig hard drive. I went to Backup and ran the wizard inserting a floppy into my A: drive when asked. The computer then started to back up a zillion MB of files and stuff onto this little floppy. According to my computer, this process was going to take two days - and who knows how many floppies - (I had selected to backup my whole computer). I must be doing something wrong here. I know people usually back up their computers weekly or so and I'm sure it doesn't take two days. Hopefully, someone can give me some help on how this is done properly (I tried the Windows Help but we all know how "helpful" that can be). Thank you.

tuesday next

Hi, Tuesday!

I have two hard drives (C: for program files and D: for my personal data files). I also have a DVD-RW drive and use Nero Express to back up the hard drive containing my personal data files once a week.

Do you have your 160 GB hard drive partitioned? If so, I'd suggest you invest in a back up program (such as Nero Express) and use that to back up your personal data files. It's so much easier with a DVD-RW drive because it only takes one DVD to back up my 20 GB hard drive.

Susan

Tuesday, My dh backs up our entire computer when he is reformatting--he always backs up onto CD-R or RW (depends what we have on hand) It would take a ton of floppies to back up an entire computer.--a 160 G hard drive can have lots of info on it. The rest of the time we just back up essential info that we would be devasted to loose--my financial info for example, and pictures-and game saves of course--but all the email and a lot of extra stuff that has been done on the computer but not necessarily needed is not backed up--if you back up your important files on a regular basis, then the process only takes a few minutes. For instance, I back up my financial files on 3 different media types each time I use them, but the process only takes me a few minutes.

Hopefully, someone will be along who can give you more info than I can.

Thanks Susie but what is Nero Express? My hard drive is not partitioned (got it from Dell only a few months back and I'm not ready to experiment yet). Is that what you do; only back up personal files - not the whole computer? Please, pretend (well it's actually not pretending) that I know absolutely nothing about this topic.

tuesday next

Hi, Tuesday!

Nero Express is a program that allows you to back up your files (music, photos or data) using either a CD-RW or DVD-RW. I got my copy with my DVD-RW drive, but I believe you can probably purchase it at any computer software store.

I only back up my personal files on "D" drive because I have all of my program CDs, WinXP CD and hardware driver CDs. Even though it would probably take me a few days to reinstall everything if my "C" drive crashed, nothing would be lost.

I'm not sure if you can partition a hard drive after the fact because I've never done it but, if it's possible, someone here will walk you through the process.

Susan

Susie, I repartitioned, reinstalled WIN 98SE on my older computer and it went fine (except IE doesn't work - who cares). I don't think it's possible to repartition the hard drive without wiping out the hard drive and starting over. Thanks.

L4L - (I'm not sure what dh refers to - I know it's an abbreviation for some member of the family, but not sure which one). Anyway, how oftern does your dh? reformat your computer? I thought that was something you do only if you've completely messed something up that would require to reformat the hard drive. Also, when you back up important info on a regular basis, are you doing this on to a CD-ROM? Thanks.

tuesday next

It's possible to repartition without losing your OS, provided the hard drive is large enough. You'd need a 3rd party program like Partition Magic.

.......and enough smarts! I'm not going to tackle it, though I'd like to.

Floppy drives are going the way of the dinosaur due to the size of harddrives and the amount of info they can hold which, in turn, requires larger storage devices for backing up all that info (CD RW/DVD RW). Floppies hold very little info, relative to those.

When I bought my DVD RW recently it came with NERO, but it's not the full version. I saw NERO at Office Depot for about $100. Another program like it is ROXIO and the price is about the same.

Like another here, I put all my data on "D" drive. I was able to backup all that data (3.8 GB) on one DVD disk, just to give you an idea of what it can do, whereas a CD R or CD RWdisk will hold about 700 MB, I believe.

Hi, Tuesday and BillyBob!

Tuesday, I've had WinXP installed for almost 2 years now and everything seems to be working fine, so reformatting and reinstalling the operating system, along with all of my other programs, isn't on my "To Do" list (grin). Now that you've partitioned your hard drive, assign one of the partitions just for your data files, and that will make backing them up so much easier.

BillyBob, I'd rather have 2 separate hard drives (one for my programs and one for my data files) because if your partitioned hard drive crashes, you'd lose everything. If my "D" drive crashes, it will take just a few minutes to copy my backed up files from a DVD-RW to the new drive and my program files will be fine.

Susan

I've been running two harddrives for years for just that reason. Have two harddrives in each of my two computers (one Win98; other XP PRO).

Having bootup problems with both computers these days but not too worried about losing much if the harddrives are dying. I really believe it is the two Gigabyte Motherboards that are the problema and as soon as I learn how to "flash" the BIOS I just might solve THAT problem.

BB, be very careful when flashing the BIOS, you must have the Exact version for your mobo and an uninterrupted instal otherwise it could fry em!!

DH stands for dear husband

as far as reformatting goes, only do it if pc is at deaths door. never ever do unless you have no other choice and then be sure it is really needed. remember the aftermath of reformatting can be worse than what you had before hand so only do if 1000% desperate as there is no going back once you do it.

Thanks everyone. I guess I'll have to think about tackling all this - whether it's worth it or not.

tuesday next