Help! Backing up my dodgy comp??

macman

Next time it will be your hard drive that fails without warning (they all die eventually, not if, but when). So learn the lesson and make regular backups of all your essential data.

Hammyman

Indeed. Proper data recovery from a failed hard drive costs around £500 per 20GB.

clurbur

Hey Hammyman, thanks for you're invaluable advice! I'l be sure to come to you in future for all my problems! :P

And to everyone else, THANKS! I'l be sure to follow your advice, i'm thinking of getting an external hard-drive. Would I be able to keep updating it off my computer say every few months or so? Are they all as good as each other? Or are there any you would recommend at a reasonable price? (Hammyman need NOT respond!)

santer_2

Had one of these for a month or so, has the advantage of only needing the USB key to be carried, and once set in place, no moving it around and possibly dropping it. Can be used with synctoy, and can be backed up to any number of PC's at any number of locations

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e24u0ErG48I&feature=related

http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=15155

Backing up to disc is fine, though check the data on any disc you make is accessible before doing anything with the originals, also make a couple of copies if possible and store them in different locations.

Check for prices but scan computers have some good external drive options

http://www.scan.co.uk/shop/computer-hardware

Toxteth_OGrady

clurbur wrote: »

Would I be able to keep updating it off my computer say every few months or so? Are they all as good as each other? Or are there any you would recommend at a reasonable price? (Hammyman need NOT respond!)

You can schedule incremental backups of your initial disk image to update over any timeframe you choose - hourly, daily, weekly, monthly etc.

I mainly use Macrium Reflect. It's free.

Hammyman

clurbur wrote: »

Hey Hammyman, thanks for you're invaluable advice! I'l be sure to come to you in future for all my problems! :P

And to everyone else, THANKS! I'l be sure to follow your advice, i'm thinking of getting an external hard-drive. Would I be able to keep updating it off my computer say every few months or so? Are they all as good as each other? Or are there any you would recommend at a reasonable price? (Hammyman need NOT respond!)

Why not? I've been building and repairing PCs longer than you have been alive.

You should back up every week at the most with an incremental backup and a full backup no more than once a month. Back up important stuff in more than one place, ie. use Dropbox or Live Skydrive in addition to a memory stick. Remember external hard drives can fail, memory sticks get lost and DVDs corrode so don't rely on just one solution for important documents.