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I'd like to first say "hello" to everyone. I must lay down a single rule, and it's commonly known by many as the Golden Rule. Please treat everyone in here as you would want to be treated. I ask that no one "flames" anyone else, or say anything obscene or rude. This is a friendly discussions blog that pertains mostly to computers, music, politics, and religion, but not restricted to just these topics.

If you're looking for some computer help, then I highly recommend by starting with my first part in my series:
Computer Advice Part 1 of 9 - Hardware Terms

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Saturday, September 4, 2010

Computer Help Part 4 of 10 - Data BackUp

If you didn't start reading from Computer Help Part 1 of 10 - Hardware Terms, then I highly recommend starting there first before continuing on...

Computer Help Part 4 of 10 - BackUp, BackUp, And BackUp Some More!!!

Data Backup: http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backup

HDD (Hard Drisk Drive)This is probably one of the most common mistakes people make because most people don't know how to backup their important or irreplaceable data, or they don't want to spend the money and time to do so. Hard drives CAN AND WILL crash (I see it almost daily), and all of those irreplaceable family pictures and home videos, hours of music, critical financial data, etc. is all gone when it does, or can cost you anywhere from $100 up to $1,700 for the Geek Squad to get this stuff back! If you're using a computer for a business, such as payroll, taxes, etc. and don't have a weekly or a daily backup routine, then you're only asking for really serious problems! I once had a small, locally-owned business who lost all of their payroll and tax information, and the IRS was auditing them the very next week! No kidding, true story. To say the least, if my memory serves me correctly, they had to pay $1,600 for their data to avoid thousands of dollars in fines by the IRS. If they only had invested in a $50 flash drive that would've easily contained a copy of all their financial data, then not only would they have saved $1,550, but also all of the time and stress they were under. To say the least, they bought an external hard drive after it was all "said and done". And doing data backups only costs you once for the flash drive (usually about $50) or an external hard drive (usually about $150), and your time and "know-how". Hmm… $50 versus up to $1,600… tough choice.

Flash DriveI usually recommend backing-up data to a Flash Drive only if you have documents, spreadsheets, financial data, and other small files. However, for lots of pictures, videos, music, presentations, and other large files, I would recommend buying an External Hard Drive instead. Blank discs are fine, but they can get costly over time, especially if you backup files weekly or daily, and they can also get scratched too easily. I prefer "re-usable" storage (meaning, you can use them over and over and over again) such as flash drives and external hard drives. DVD-RW discs are tempting to use, but they can degrade (get worse) over time, thus taking a higher risk of losing important data the more you erase and reuse them.

What brand or size of flash drive or external hard drive to get? Usually, brands don't matter, except that SanDisk does make a good flash drive, and Seagate offers a 5-year warranty on their Hard Drives, which is longer than most of the other brands (at the time of this writing). As far as size goes, the bigger the better! ;-) I usually recommend the largest-sized Flash Drive you can possibly afford (such as around $100 or so), or an External Hard Drive with at least half of the size of what's in your computer, but getting an External Hard Drive the same size as what's in your computer wouldn't hurt, either, if you can afford it. You could easily spend anywhere from $100 to $800 for an External Hard Drive, as long it'll hold everything you need now and for a few years down the road. Different brands of Flash Drives and External Hard Drives go on sale almost every week, so keep a close eye on commercials and flyers of your favorite local retailers!

Backup and Restore CenterNot only do many External Hard Drives come with software that can be set once for regular, routine backups, but most versions of Microsoft Windows even come with a small backup program, also. You can usually find Microsoft's Backup utility by:

  1. Left-clicking on the Start Menu, located in the far bottom-left corner of the screen.
  2. And then going to "All Programs".
  3. Then "Accessories".
  4. Then "System Tools".
  5. And lastly "Backup".
Either use backup software to regularly backup your data, or learn how to "copy and paste" everything you want to keep regularly. Here's the steps of copying and pasting in Windows:

My DocumentsFirst, open "My Documents" in WinXP or "Documents" in Vista.
Using the Menus in Windows (probably the easiest):

  1. At the top-left of the "My Documents" window, left-click on "Edit".
  2. A small menu will drop-down, and then left-click on "Select All".
  3. Left-click on "Edit" again.
  4. Left-click on "Copy to folder".
  5. A new, small window will appear, allowing you to select which drive you want to copy to. Select the drive letter of your flash drive or your external hard drive (most often it's drive letter "E" or drive letter "F", but this can vary depending upon how many drives your computer has).
  6. After you select the appropriate drive letter, click on the "Copy" button.
MouseUsing the Mouse:

  1. Move your mouse somewhere inside of the "My Documents" folder to a blank area within the window.
  2. Left-click and hold-down the left mouse button (but NOT while on a file or folder!).
  3. Drag a box around the files and folders you want to copy until all of them are selected.
  4. Let go of the left mouse button.
  5. Right-click on any one of these files or folders.
  6. A small menu will drop down, and one of the options you can select is "Copy". Left-click on this.
  7. Open "My Computer" or "Windows Explorer".
  8. Double-left-click the drive letter of your flash drive or your external hard drive (most often it's drive letter "E" or drive letter "F", but this can vary depending upon how many drives your computer has).
  9. Right-click on a blank area (NOT on a file or folder!), a small menu will drop down, and the option you select is "Paste".
KeyboardUsing the Keyboard (what I prefer):

  1. Hold down the "CTRL" key and then quickly press the "A" key and then let go of the "CTRL" key, just like the way you would hold down the "SHIFT" key and quickly press the letter "a" to type the capitalized letter "A". Everything in the "My Documents" folder will be automatically selected.
  2. As with Step #1, hold down the "CTRL" key and then quickly press the "C" key. This tell Windows to copy all of the files and folders you just selected into its temporary memory.
  3. Open "My Computer" or "Windows Explorer".
  4. Double-left-click the drive letter of your flash drive or your external hard drive (most often it's drive letter "E" or drive letter "F", but this can vary depending upon how many drives your computer has).
  5. As with Step #1 and Step #2, hold down the "CTRL" key and then quickly press the "V" key. This tells Windows to paste the files and folders here.
Lastly, if you have files and folders on your flash drive or on your external hard drive that has the same names as to what you're copying, Windows will ask if you want to overwrite these files. If you do want to replace the older files and folders with the updated files and folders, then select "Yes" or "Yes to All".

NeroThere are a lot of backup programs out there, and usually most "burning" software suites, such as Roxio Creator at http://www.roxio.com/ and Nero at http://www.nero.com/, come with a backup program. Acronis at http://www.acronis.com/ usually gets high reviews for their backup and disc imaging programs. Always do the research before you buy and open software because you could get stuck with a program you don't like or want to use! I've divided many important items into three categories that both home and business users usually want to backup, and that also depends upon what you use your computer for:

Both Home And Business Users

  • Documents (created with Wordpad, Microsoft Works, Microsoft Word, Corel WordPerfect, etc.)
  • Web Browser Favorites/Bookmarks (added in Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Apple's Safari, Opera, etc.)
  • E-Mails and Address Book/Contacts (used Microsoft Outlook Express, Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft Windows Mail, Mozilla Thunderbird, etc.)
  • Financial (created with Intuit's Quicken, Microsoft Money, Intuit's QuickBooks, etc.)
Home Users

  • Pictures (scanned using a scanner or from a digital camera)
  • Videos (downloaded from a digital camcorder or using an analog camcorder with a video recording device)
  • Music (downloaded and/or "ripped" from music CDs)
Business Users

  • Publications (created in Microsoft Publisher, etc.)
  • Spreadsheets (created in Microsoft Excel, etc.)
  • Presentations (created in Microsoft PowerPoint, etc.)
For most versions of Microsoft Windows, most of these files can be found in "My Documents" and its subfolders. If you use Windows Vista, then these folders can be found in your "user" folder (whatever your user account's named). Also remember that you'll need to backup these folders, subfolders, and files for each user account you have on the computer that you want to keep!

If you use a web browser besides Microsoft Internet Explorer, you'll probably want to save your Bookmarks. A good practice is to make a subfolder inside your "My Documents" folder called anything you like such as "Bookmarks". Then, while inside of your web browser, click on "Help" (or you can usually just press the "F1" key instead) and search within the Help Contents to see how to export or save your Bookmarks to the subfolder you just created. If your Hard Drive ever crashes, you can import these Bookmarks back into your web browser
after repairing your hard drive issue. If you use Microsoft Internet Explorer, simply backup the "Favorites" folder. You have two ways of doing this, but the easiest way is by following the same directions for the other web browsers, listed above, for exporting or saving your Favorites. In most versions of Microsoft Internet Explorer, you can import and export your Favorites by left-clicking on "File" in the top-left corner of the window while inside of Microsoft Internet Explorer, and then left-clicking on "Import and Export" in the drop-down menu. Get into the monthly or even weekly habit of exporting, saving, and backing-up your important Bookmarks or Favorites.

Windows MailE-mail client programs, such as Microsoft Outlook Express (Windows XP and older), Microsoft Outlook (comes with most versions of Microsoft Office), Microsoft Windows Mail (Windows Vista), and Mozilla Thunderbird have very similar ways of exporting or saving your Address Book/Contacts and e-mails, much like the same way you can with Boomarks and Favorites using your web browser. First, create a subfolder inside of "My Documents" called anything you like, such as "E-Mail". Then open your e-mail client, click on "Help" (or you can usually just press the "F1" key instead) and search within the Help Contents to see how to export or save your Address Book/Contacts and e-mail messages to the subfolder you just created. If your Hard Drive ever crashes, you can import your Address Book/Contacts and e-mail messages back into your E-Mail Client after repairing your hard drive issue. And as with your web browser, get into the monthly or even weekly habit of exporting, saving, and backing-up your important Address Book/Contacts and e-mail messages.

QuickenIf you use financial software, such as Intuit's Quicken or Quickbooks, or Microsoft Money, be sure that your files are saved somewhere inside your "My Documents" folder! Most of the newer versions of these programs already does so, but some of the older versions do not! If you can't find a subfolder in "My Documents" that has your financial files saved, then you'll need to export or save them. Most of these programs will let you export or save this information to anywhere you want. I recommend creating a subfolder in your "My Documents" folder, and you can name the folder anything you want such as "Finances". Then open your financial program, click on "Help" (or you can usually just press the "F1" key instead) and search within the Help Contents to see how to export or save your financial data to the subfolder you just created. With most financial software, you can export and import your financial data by left-clicking on "File" in the top-left corner of the window while inside of your financial program window, and left-clicking on the appropriate option. If your Hard Drive ever crashes, you can import your financial data back into your financial software after repairing your hard drive issue. And as with your web browser and e-mail client, get into the monthly or even weekly habit of exporting, saving, and backing-up your important financial data. Also, most financial programs will let you set a schedule to automatically backup your data to where ever you want, whenever you want. Use this feature!!!

As long as you regularly save all of your important data somewhere inside of the "My Documents" folder, then when you backup your data, all you'll need to backup is just the "My Documents" folder onto a flash drive, an external drive, or burn onto disc! One folder to backup, and that's it. Makes backing up easy, and makes sense, eh?

Another common mistake I see often is when people aren't making a copy of everything important they have, but simply moving (cut and paste, instead of copy and paste) everything over from their computer's internal hard drive to a flash drive or an external hard drive! An external hard drive is still a computer hard drive inside of a plastic case, and can crash just as easily as one that's inside of your computer! Flash drives can easily get damaged, especially where the tip of it plugs into the USB (Universal Serial Bus) port of your computer. I once had this poor, desperate girl, in tears, who had all of her digital pictures of her father, who had passed-away, stored on her flash drive, and the tip of it was almost completely broken-off. I was BARELY able to copy her pictures from it and burned them onto a disc, after having to "finagle" with it for a long while. I've seen both instances happen way too many times. Don't just move your data, but copy it so you have at least two copies of everything! The chances of both going down is next to nill. I've setup my Dad's business computer to backup THREE copies of all his financial data weekly! Better safe than sorry. I've got an extra hard drive inside my computer that does nothing but keeps a weekly copy of all my family pictures and videos, etc., from another hard drive, after seeing all of the problems people have with losing their stuff while I've been working at the Geek Squad!

I've personally have had over half-a-dozen hard drives die on me throughout the years. Backing-up your important data is one of the most critical things you can do with your computer, unless you don't have anything you don't care to lose. Almost anything in a computer can be fixed or replaced, but your "stored memories" and critical data could be gone forever. And how often you backup your data depends how often you add or change your stuff. For most people, backing-up your data monthly or weekly is usually enough, but many businesses should backup their data daily!

Now, onto
Computer Help Part 5 of 10 - Recovery Discs...

  1. Computer Help Part 1 of 10 - Hardware Terms (Start)
  2. Computer Help Part 2 of 10 - Software Terms
  3. Computer Help Part 3 of 10 - Upgrading & Maintenance (Previous)
  4. Computer Help Part 4 of 10 - Data BackUp (Current)
  5. Computer Help Part 5 of 10 - Recovery Discs (Next)
  6. Computer Help Part 6 of 10 - Protection Software
  7. Computer Help Part 7 of 10 - Free Software
  8. Computer Help Part 8 of 10 - Not-So-Free Software
  9. Computer Help Part 9 of 10 - Scheduled Tasks
  10. Computer Help Part 10 of 10 - Quick Fixes (End)



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