Hard drive backup

dsb66

Hi there
I have dilemma, i have an old desktop pc on it are a lot of family pics and video (mp4 files i think)
The PC is getting old and i worry it will crash and i will loose all these files. What is the most cost effective way to save them. I figure i have about 30gb of files i want to keep, but unfortunately i am not very technical. So any help or suggestions would be very appreciated.

Thks Dsb66

Mike54_2

Buy an external hard drive, get a 160gb one so you have loads of space on it. And if its just your files your worried about (pics, music, docs etc..) simply copy and paste it onto the external hard drive.

If you want to back up everything on the PC (a mirror image), use something like Acronis Home Image.

bookduck

DVD, will probably be around for some time yet, but the chemicals in them decay. hdd's from ata to sata and from sata probably to solid state.

Print them out and save them onto DVD give a few dvd's to relatives and keep the hdd.

MikeFishcake

As Mike54 recommends - Acronis TrueImage is a great program for backing up your entire system. It's similar to Symantec's "Ghost" program, but far superior.

For simple file backups, I personally use Microsoft's SyncToy program from my internal hard drives to my external one:

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/digitalphotography/prophoto/synctoy.mspx

Dead easy to use, and best of all, free! You can set it up so it only backs up files that have been added/changed since your last backup if you like, so you don't waste time re-copying the same files.

I always, always strongly advise people to back up their data. Invest in an external hard drive and make sure you back up regularly. I've seen far too many people lose their precious data because they didn't think it would happen to them. I've seen students lose years and years of work; I've seen people lose irreplaceable family photos, I've seen people literally in tears because their hard drives have crashed, and it's horrible to see. Yes, sometimes it's just a simple software fault, and yes there are specialist data recovery companies that can recover data from crashed hard drives, but they are massively expensive for a decent service (often into four figures) so it's well worth investing in an external hard drive for your peace of mind. See it as "data insurance"

superscaper

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=597170

dsb66

SO thanks for the responses. If i go down the route of the external hard drive is it usable between different PC's ? and as the old one is XP and the new one is Vista.

I know i am a technophobe. Being disabled and virtually housebound you would think i had all the time in the world to become more technical. I guess the big 40 took it out of me LOL

Once again thank you all very much

Rgds DSB

robt_2

dsb66 wrote: »

SO thanks for the responses. If i go down the route of the external hard drive is it usable between different PC's ? and as the old one is XP and the new one is Vista.

I know i am a technophobe. Being disabled and virtually housebound you would think i had all the time in the world to become more technical. I guess the big 40 took it out of me LOL

Once again thank you all very much

Rgds DSB

Yes it will be usable on different PC's with different operating systems

Edinburghlass_2

Been searching for something I thought I read about on here regarding a programme that will find your photos, or was I imagining it

Like the OP I want to transfer all photos from my old desktop to an external hard drive while I still can and seem to have them in lots of different places due to installing new software with each camera upgrade

BritBrat

Edinburghlass wrote: »

Been searching for something I thought I read about on here regarding a programme that will find your photos, or was I imagining it

Like the OP I want to transfer all photos from my old desktop to an external hard drive while I still can and seem to have them in lots of different places due to installing new software with each camera upgrade

Make a Norton Ghost image of the drive.

Then from that image you can open it with ghost explorer and view it just as you do with windows explorer.

You can also mount the image and it will look and act just like another drive on your computer.

Then if you missed any you go back and have another look for them.

Try a search using "*.jpg" without the "" and it should find images.

superscaper

Edinburghlass wrote: »

Been searching for something I thought I read about on here regarding a programme that will find your photos, or was I imagining it

Like the OP I want to transfer all photos from my old desktop to an external hard drive while I still can and seem to have them in lots of different places due to installing new software with each camera upgrade

Was it Picasa?

jje_2

I have an external hard drive in a USB enclosure . Available from many sources .
Drive is formatted as per a standard windows disc . Photos music etc to not lose copied to this drive all you do is plug a power adaptor in and a usb connection the drive shows in my computer and drag and drop or cut and paste drive to drive .
As hard drives also fail i play safe and have backed up some irreplaceable stuff on dvd as well .

You can also connect this external drive to a friends computer to transfer files across.
But these days i find a 4gb usb memory stick does that job far easier .
jje