Need to back up everything externally - How is best/quickest please?

mamazaac

PaulK wrote: »

Have you looked in event viewer? (control panel, admin tools)

Have just done so, but means nothing to me. What should I be looking for please?

mamazaac

albertross wrote: »

As a start, try running chkdsk

start run

chkdsk c: /F/R

and reboot.

has the switching user problem just started? If it has, you could try a system restore to undo recent changes.

Could you recreate the other user account or create another one, and see if you can switch to that successfully ?

Ok, I'll give that a go. The switching user problem was there from when we started using the computer properly. We had our old and new computer both set up for a couple of weeks, whilst we found time here and there to transfer stuff across, but weren't really switching users frequently then so don't know if was there right from the start. We have 4 user accounts on the pc and it doesn't seem to matter which one you switch to/from, the problem still occurs.

albertross_2

Do you use edatasecurity?

what is the content of

C:\DOCUME~1\SHARON~1\LOCALS~1\Temp\701f_appcompat.txt

mamazaac

albertross wrote: »

Do you use edatasecurity?

what is the content of

C:\DOCUME~1\SHARON~1\LOCALS~1\Temp\701f_appcompat.txt

I have looked at it and printed off some details about it, but I think I left the settings as they were, as it seems a bit complicated to me.

mamazaac

albertross wrote: »

As a start, try running chkdsk

start run

chkdsk c: /F/R

and reboot.

has the switching user problem just started? If it has, you could try a system restore to undo recent changes.

Could you recreate the other user account or create another one, and see if you can switch to that successfully ?

Ok, have just tried to run chkdsk. However, it comes up:-

The type of the file system is NTFS.
Cannot lock current drive.

Chkdsk cannot run because the volume is in use by another process. Would you like to schedule this volume to be checked the next time the system restarts? (Y/N).

Presumably I click on the Y and restart the computer do I?

bat999

mamazaac wrote: »

Thank you for your reply. I don't have a lot of my documents stuff to copy across in terms of size, but my husband has a couple of large programmes which takes us over the 2gb limit. Networking the pcs or connecting them via USB seems a good idea - if I do one of these can I just give the computer one instruction to copy everything at once or do I still need to copy/paste or select each individual item to move it? Also, is the networking or the USB option the cheapest/easiest please and what would I need to buy? And I didn't think about creating a separate folder on the old pc, so that might be useful, but can program files be copied into that as well as documents?

Hi
If you do decide to back up your stuff, I don't think that you will be able to back up the programs. I think that you will need to re-install them again from the discs.

TheOneSteeltips

mamazaac wrote: »

Ok, have just tried to run chkdsk. However, it comes up:-

The type of the file system is NTFS.
Cannot lock current drive.

Chkdsk cannot run because the volume is in use by another process. Would you like to schedule this volume to be checked the next time the system restarts? (Y/N).

Presumably I click on the Y and restart the computer do I?

yes thats right select yes and reboot the system
the check will start automatically
i am a tech and i would charge between 45 and 90 to backup and reinstall a laptop providing the system will take a reinstall.

run the check your looking for bad sectors other wise the drive should be fine.
as for backing up a 4 gb usb pen might be of use

if you send me your mimidump file i will look at it and see if i can identify the problem

%SystemRoot%\Minidump
%SystemRoot% is usaly the c:\windows folder

Mobeer

For keeping a copy of your documents I would recommend DVD+R\DVD-R disks - 4.7 GB on a single layer disk; possibly enough storage if just backing up documents.

mamazaac

Ebuyer have an offer on a 320gb hard drive for £54.99 at the moment which, if you go through google checkout, can be bought for £44.99. Please can anyone confirm whether this would be suitable for what I need, or could I get one cheaper with a smaller memory which would suffice?

Chippy_Minton

Yes, the ebuyer drive is very good value - you won't find cheaper £/GB - and is very suitable for your needs. It connects to a spare USB port and you can use it to backup both computers.