Backups
Do you have irreplaceable pictures on your computer? Pictures of a wedding, the grandkids or your favorite pet? How about a video? Or a song?
Now let me ask you this? Is it backed up?
What would happen to these precious files if your computer died tomorrow? As many times as not, when I've seen a hard drive crash, it was sudden and with very little warning. I have also had the owner ask me if the files on it could be saved. Too many times I've had to answer that "No, I would probably not be able to save those files." Most of the time, the computer can be repaired and saved. But the files on it, some of which may have been one-of-a-kind, cannot. It's been said that "if you have one copy of something, you don't have it at all."
So what do we do about this? The answer is simple, and so is the process. BACK UP your data!
What should you backup?
It's a common misconception out there that to do a complete backup of a Windows computer, you have to backup EVERYTHING on the hard drive. That is not true. You only need to backup your data. This is essentially the information on the computer that you created. There are some other items that you should backup as well, like e-mail files and settings for some programs. My point is that you don't need to backup Windows; if you have a problem, you'll be reinstalling Windows anyway, and you don't want to bring old problems into your new install. You also cannot backup programs that are installed. When you install a program into Windows, it basically tells Windows that it's there. If you have a clean Windows install, and you copy a program folder back into Windows, it doesn't know how to run that program. You have to reinstall your programs; and even then, this is an opportunity to NOT install programs you haven't used in a while. You probably don't need them.
If you are a normal user, most of your data will be contained in your User folder.
In Windows XP, this folder will be located at C:\Documents and Settings\username.
In Vista and Windows 7, the folder will be at C:\Users\username. Within this folder, you'll find several items. The ones we are concerned with are Favorites, which are your Internet Explorer favorite sites, and My Documents (or Documents in Vista and 7). If you get these two folders backed up, you will have saved a vast majority of the files you need: the most important and irreplaceable items, like your pictures.
If you have saved important files to any other location, you should back those up.
If you use Firefox, and I do hope you do, I strongly recommend backing up your Profiles folder. This folder is located at C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles
You may also want to backup your e-mail. If you are using a desktop e-mail program like Outlook, you can save the data file that the program writes to, and you will have the majority of your settings saved if you ever need to restore your system.
Outlook: Data for Outlook is kept in a file with the extension .pst. You can search for this file and back it up.
Windows Mail: To create a copy of your Windows Mail address book (also known as Windows Contacts):
1. From the menu in Windows Mail, select Tools>Windows Contacts
2. Press Ctrl-A. Make sure all items in the address book are highlighted.
3. Press Ctrl-C.
4. Open the desired backup location in Windows.
5. Press Ctrl-V. Make sure all items from the address book appear.
Incredimail: To create a backup copy of your IncrediMail files:
1. From the menu in IncrediMail, select File>Data and Settings Transfer>Transfer to New Computer... .
2. Click Continue.
3. In some versions of IncrediMail, you have to click OK.
4. Choose the folder and file name of your backup copy.
5. Click Save.
6. Watch IncrediMail back up your data.
7. Close the finishing dialog with OK.
Windows Live Mail: Instructions for backing up Windows Live Mail can be found here.