Advice wanted on backing up hard drive

cslogg

I have just had the unfortunate experience of my hard drive failing on my PC.
To cut a long story short I have lost everything and will have to start again.
I have now decided to make back ups of my drive on a regular basis in case it happens again.Can any one advise me on how to do this?A colleague suggested getting an external drive and connecting it to my pc and configuring it to back up every week/month or whatever.Is this the best way to go?Do I need to back it all up or just the data?What software should I use?Any advise would be grateful.Is there a website with all this sort of info on it?

Thanks
cslogg

albertross_2

is the old disk dead, as a dodo (not spinning, or not seen by the bios).

how much data do you have to backup, in GB


disk imaging software is the safest, (norton ghost/acronis trueimage/driveimagexml) method, and DVD's safest medium, but can become unpractical if you have two much data, and then you would be better off with a usb HD (but as you have found out, HD's die, and viruses can take the master and backup out at the same time).

x_Wilco_x

Depends on the amount you need to back up and how important it is - if it is just a few gb, important docs and some mp3 then I would just regularily burn to a CD/DVD. It is only really my docs, emails/address book and favourites that I back up as system stuff can be replaced.

External HDD's are another way to back up but have a large initial outlay and may be overkill for just a few files - there is a chance this could also fail at some point!

Personally I have 2 HDD's in my tower, one for system and one for docs - I then back up the really important stuff every few months (valuable photo's, doc's etc - stuff that can't be replaced) onto DVD...

cslogg

I have asked a few people at work which is the best way to go and I mainly get two different answers. One is to buy one of these
http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=217654&TabID=1&source=1&doy=8m8
and schedule it to back up all of my PCs drive on regular basis,then if my main one fails I have a ready made replacement.The other way is to just back up the important stuff to a DVD regularly.Of course it does not help that I am a fairly forgetful person and I know I would forget to back up ,which why the first option is appealing to me :-).Is the sofware mentioned in the previous posts easy use.

cslogg

cslogg

Just a thought,if I were to back up only my important data would one of the larger memory sticks be better than DVDs?

cslogg

x_Wilco_x

The largest flash drives/memory sticks of 4gb+ are much more expensive than DVD's and a standard DVD holds 4.7gb - however, a flash drive would probably be more convinient to back up regularily...

letsbehonest

I Have a second HD for backups only and I make a monthly image using Norton Ghost

richyrichuk

getting 8GB flash drives is easy. and quick. but can get costly depends on how much data you have

DVD's are never to great as easily lost or scratched.

dont use norton ghost or other things. to many things can go wrong!!

best option is to get an external hard drive....http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/product/124035

lots and lots of space also for any movies or whatever else u may have.

and use windows backup..http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/setup/learnmore/bott_03july14.mspx

and all u have 2 do is tell it once what files and folders to backup. then tell it were 2 save it. then after u have done that once.

the next time u want to backup your system again. u can just couple click on the backup icon and it will run ur system backup for you....

and thats it!

JoeA81

I have an external HD which I bought for just this purpose, but I have been slack in getting round to setting up an automatic backup. I want to leave my external HD plugged in all the time, and set up software to automatically back up all my important folders one a week or something.

It would be pretty time consuming to keep backing up the same 150GB of data every week, so is there any software that can monitor changes to your files and folders and then only backup the files which are new or have been changed over the course of that week between backups?

richyrichuk

richyrichuk wrote: »

and use windows backup..http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/setup/learnmore/bott_03july14.mspx

...................

Aiadi

JoeA81 wrote: »

I have an external HD which I bought for just this purpose, but I have been slack in getting round to setting up an automatic backup. I want to leave my external HD plugged in all the time, and set up software to automatically back up all my important folders one a week or something.

It would be pretty time consuming to keep backing up the same 150GB of data every week, so is there any software that can monitor changes to your files and folders and then only backup the files which are new or have been changed over the course of that week between backups?

I tried so many and found the easiest and most convenient one to be F-Sync:
http://www.fileware.com/products.htm
You just create the profile for backup (what folder and files you want backed up) and then you can backup and synchronise with a single click. Simple manual here:http://www.fileware.com/manuals/filesync/topicpage.htm

Hope this helps everyone.