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OT Back up your hard drives!

I'm coming up for air after four days of computer h*ll...

Friday morning at work, our main computer wouldn't boot up. Which means none of the cash registers will boot up. Which means we're writing up receipts by hand, and have to run to the shelves to look up each price of each item. Grrr.... Long story short, I've spent the last four days on the phone with tech support, installing new hardware, installing new software, installing more new hardware, back on the phone with tech support, installing more new software... you get the idea.

So why haven't I shot myself? Because I had a backup of ALL the data. I knew eventually I'd get it all back running, and I did. Whew!

The moral of the story is back up your data, and do it regularly. Better yet, set your computer up so that it will do it for you. Because your computer WILL crash. All your email, calendars, photos, music, bookmarks, everything will be gone if you don't back up. So back up now, and then go have some chocolate for being clever enough to back up. :)

Reply to
Kathy Applebaum
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How does one go about backing up their hard drive? Not a joke I really have no idea. Thanks

Reply to
Vikki In WA State

Lots and lots of ways to do it -- I'm sure others here will chime in with their favorites. :)

First, you need to have something to back up onto. My personal favorite is an external hard drive, because it's fast, cheap, and easy. Won't help you if your house burns down, because the HD will burn with it, but it is a great back up for most other purposes. If you don't want to pop for an external HD, you can back up onto CDs. But that is a mild PITA (Pain In The A**), and if backing up is a mild PITA, you'll put it off and put it off. Then you'll be sorry.*grin* Best to find an external hard drive on sale (or on freecycle!).

Windoze has a program called backup built right in. On my computer you click on "start", then "all programs", then "accessories", then "system tools", then backup. The good thing is it's cheap (ie free), because it's already on your system. It will walk you through the process. I hear the current versions work pretty well -- I decided against it long ago for various reasons, and haven't tried it again, so I can't tell you much more about it.

At work here I use both Norton Ghost and Dantz' Retrospect. Both are more expensive than the Windoze program (ie they aren't free), but they work well. Ghost is nice because you can use your machine while you're backing up. Retrospect has worked very well for me for many, many years, on both Mac and Windoze. I set it, I forget it, and it does its thing every night. Perfect for me.

If you have a Mac and you have .mac ("dot-mac"), there's some backup stuff built in to that. The nice thing is you're backing up to Apple's computers somewhere other than your house, so you're protected if your house burns down. The bad thing is dot-mac has a yearly charge. Nice if you're using all the services, but pricy just for backup.

Did I help? Did I confuse? Let me know!

Reply to
Kathy Applebaum

Do you back up everything (programs, etc., etc.), or just data?

Reply to
Donna in Idaho

I make a full backup every two weeks, only because I do a lot on my computer - I mean, a lot. Plus I have a web hosting and web design business (small but enough to keep me in fabric) that I need to make sure is secure in any event. I use a 120 GB external hard drive that I can snatch in an instant if needed. Then I do an incremental every night which catches everything I did that day. I use a program called Retrospect that works pretty well and can do the backups when I am not using the machine. Every month, I copy over the first back-up so I always have a full month on the hard drive.

I have a web client that never found the time to back up the PC even after my repeated reminders and warnings and then had a hard drive failure. I was able to rebuild his system which he used for an at home business but it cost him dearly. I now provide him with back-up services as part of his monthly web services.

However you do it, just do it! It's really worth the time!

Reply to
AliceW

Because I'm backing up to external hard drives, I back up everything. I have the room, it's just as easy to set the backup program to do it, and I back up in the middle of the night so I don't care how long it takes.

I also make an extra backup of *really* critical data (my accounting stuff at work, my checkbook at home) onto either CDs or USB keys, which I then store offsite (home stuff stored at work, work stuff stored at home). Since CDs and USB keys don't hold a lot, I just back up the data.

Reply to
Kathy Applebaum

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