how do I back up before laptop crashes?!

pigeonpie

How do I back up Outlook and OE accounts (emails) and Firefox and IE 7 favourites please?
I searched Help menus in vain.
I have to take the lappy in for repair and think they want to clean the whole thing and will lose it all.

Please help with simple instructions as I'm an idiot. thanks guys.

bat999

Hi
This is how to back up Firefox bookmarks:-
Click on Bookmarks > Organize Bookmarks >File > Export
Then save the bookmarks.html file on your desktop.
Then copy the bookmarks.html file to a storage device - such as a CD-R or CD-RW or floppy disk or USB memory stick.

When you want to re-install the bookmarks later, reverse the process.
From storage device to desktop then
Bookmarks > Organize Bookmarks > File > Import
:cool:

Cricri

For IE favourites, just backup the directory:
C:\Documents and Settings\Your name\Favorites

For OE:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/270670

albertross_2

This will back up the whole laptop, if you have an external drive to plug into it

http://www.runtime.org/dixml.htm

or acronis trueimage/norton ghost (which you have to pay for)

pigeonpie

Hi, no external drive. I managed to do Firefox and IE bookmarks but am struggling with OE and Outlook. I can't understand the MS tutorial basically.
Any simple way to do it as I can't lose it all and have to do it this weekend?

Eyesparky

Outlook Express

click 'File', 'Export' then choose 'address book' or 'messages' and follow through the choices e.g. comma separated text etc.

Outlook

click 'File', 'Import/Export', 'Export to a file' and then choose the file type you want to export to. To reinstate these choose which type of file you want to import from in the 'Import/Export' list.

Copy files you create to multiple back up media and if possible store a copy off site somewhere.

Cricri

I wouldn't suggest a full backup (e.g. drive image) as sugegsted by albertross unless you know for sure that it's a hardware problem. Indeed, if you have a software problem, you'd backup the problem as well!

albertross_2

maybe, but at least all the files will be there, including all the ones that people will forgot about until it's too late.

pigeonpie

some of them have been autoarchived. IF I can work out how to do the above will they be copied as well? It seems loads more complicated than backing up the webmail but I can't lose all my old emails.
Will have a go later and post if going squirrels......

pigeonpie

My ISP emailed me how to do it, but it doesn't work. The .pst file saves itself as an unreadable jumble in Excel????
Should I ditch the lot or is there some way I can try to save the old address books and would rather keep people's email addresses than all the old emails anyhow.
thanks guys.

albertross_2

The pst file will be readable in outlook though