What's The Best Way For To Do A Backup

kah22

My laptop is starting to give me trouble. There appears to be two major issues: 1 over the past few months the blue screen has begun to appear, at first it was just once or twice and I paid no notice to it now it seems to be happening on a more regular basis.

2. Often when I re-awaken my machine a white screen appears and there really only seems to be one way of getting around that closing down and opening up again.

In addition my keys are beginning to stick or at least have to be pressed rather firmly in order to work properly. The DVD drive packed in about nine months back. As you can see it is in a sickly state!

Anyway I'm trying to hold off buying a new computer until the New Year in the hope of getting a decent discount. I recognize that I now need to do a backup of my computer.

So here is the question. What's the best way to do a backup. There is nothing irreplaceable on the machine; it's just or personal use. I have word documents, a few spreadsheets, my emails of course and some music and video files, and really that's about it.

Since I've had the machine I've also downloaded some programs from the net and I'd like to save these as indeed I'd like to save programs I've bought but I understand the transfer of programs is not that simple (am I right?)

So how do I go about saving all this material. It's a big question hopefully the answer is not.

Here is some additional information.
Computer Model: Inspiron 1764
Shipping Date: 4/8/2010
Country: United Kingdom


As always many thanks for your answers

Kevin

closed

Have you read all the answers in your other threads about the faults?

Try using hibernate instead of suspend, in power saving settings, it might cure the white screen

Scan for malware with malwarebytes.

DVD drive problems can also be software related, have you installed or uninstalled itunes? What packed in, what discs can't be read? Does the drive show up in device manager?

A system image on an external hard disk, and a macrium boot cd

http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.aspx

and a copy of important data on dvd. General rule is to have at least 2 copies on two different media

and create the windows dvd if you don't have one, which you can use if you ever try to use the factory restore partition, and it fails

A factory restore, which takes 10-15 minutes may cure all your problems, apart from the keys, but backup to more than one place first

Transfer of (most)programs to a different machine, apart from portable versions is nigh on impossible without reinstalling them

Keyboard problem (assuming no spillages), might be cured by reseating the keyboard in the casing, or reseating the ribbon cable (very carefully). If not, and you have ruled out a software problem, new keyboards are fairly cheap.

macman

Simply backup your data to a USB external hard drive, DVD/CD or flash drive (in descending order of preference). Programs cannot be backed up, they need to be reinstalled.
You need to do this now without delay before your PC expires. The time to back up is before you have problems, not after.
In your situation the backup method is not that important-the point is to have a back, risk losing all your data.
Once you have done a back up, you can do a factory restore, reinstall or whatever repair method you prefer.

googler

kah22 wrote: »

There is nothing irreplaceable on the machine; it's just or personal use. I have word documents, a few spreadsheets, my emails of course and some music and video files, and really that's about it.

Determine the total file size of all of the Docs, XLSs, mp3s etc and make a note.

Since I've had the machine I've also downloaded some programs from the net and I'd like to save these as indeed I'd like to save programs I've bought but I understand the transfer of programs is not that simple (am I right?)

Usually a downloaded program from the web will arrive as an install package, an executable, which you would have Run to install the full program on the PC. The install package will still be wherever you put it when you downloaded it, unless you deleted it later. This will usually be the 'Downloads' folder, unless you picked another location.

Once you've found the install packages you want to keep, make a note of their file sizes and add to the above figure

Or you could download them again from the web once you have the new machine

So how do I go about saving all this material. It's a big question hopefully the answer is not.

Armed with the total file size calculated above, buy or borrow USB memory sticks or external drives sufficient to hold it all.

Once you have new PC, connect USB sticks and/or drives to it, and copy stuff over.