BellaOnline Forums Computers PC Advice Why people don't backup their computers

Is there a safe, reliable site upon which I can store files from my hard drive while I reformatt? CD's take too long and for some reason they aren't working right.

I copy my files to an external hard drive. I haven't figured out how to do an automatic back up of these files so that anything changed or new only would be backed up. Do you know how to do it?

I have VISTA. The software that came with my hard drive does not work with VISTA and since the initial changeover I have not looked for drivers.

Angie - Vista comes with software built into it. Did you try the Vista backup utilities?

I just wanted to remind everyone it's time for their monthly backup! Find some way - any way - to get your important files backed up. You never know when a hard drive is about to fail!

Even if you copy your most important files onto a CD, it's better than nothing!

My computer is a year and a half old but there's something wrong that I've not taken time to get repaired. It started Thanksgiving and will lock up when a certain thing tries to download an update. I've gotten it worked around for the most part so that I'm not having problems, but I really became worried about losing things I would regret and didn't have backed up.

I do have an external hard drive I also used for back-up, and I use my laptop for back-up, but still I'm not the best about simply doing it. A little over a month ago I went to an online back-up system which has my entire computer backed up. The first 2 gb are free, but I was way over that so I had to use the purchased version since I didn't want to simply say which files back up (such as my document files). I pay 4.95 per month and have it set to back up at 2:00 A.M. every day. It's with an online place called Mozy.

I'd not wanted to go with an online system simply becaue I didn't like my whole computer out in cyberville but finally changed my mind. So far I've been pleased. And when I was reminded by a writing agent that the businesses that got themselves up and running again the the quickest after 9/11 were the ones who had an online back-up system, that convinced me.

Oh definitely I highly agree that EVERYONE should back up their files. I've heard from families who lost all their photos since they were all digital! Can you imagine losing all your photos??

External drives are great, but those can fail too. I definitely recommend having a local external drive for easy-to-get-to backups, but also once a month store stuff off onto DVD. That way it's non-crashable.

I even recommend every year or so moving a set of DVDs somewhere else. Anywhere else. A friend's house. A relative's house. That way if your house burns down, you have at least some backup of data somewhere.

The key though is not to worry about giant problems if you haven't even backed up yet. Just start small. Start today with just your most important files. If your hard drive went down today, what would you miss the most? Just drag and drop those onto a DVD. Even that much is better than nothing!

Then we can help automate it

I had a scare with my photos. My computer crashed and I was told it couldn't be fixed. I got the "black screen of death". I had pics from about 5 years of vacations, etc on there.

My husband had backed my computer up about 8 months before the crash but I had some very precious pics on there. My husband was able to get some sort of program to fix the computer and I immediately put all my photos to CD, plus sent them to COSTCO, to my account there.

Now I back up my computer every month and I would make a special back up if I put some vacation photos or something on it.

I am a firm believer in frequent back-ups, too. My laptop was stolen a few months ago and I lost several months worth of photos, plus an ebook I was writing for a client (due 3 days later, had to restart from scratch) plus screenplays I had written, my deepest-secret-thoughts in my diary for 15 years, ebooks and other downloadable files I had paid for and my kids' homeschool transcripts/records. Needless to say I was FREAKED OUT.

Now I backup on an external drive every few weeks or so, and I use my web hosting server (unlimited storage) to keep my important work files that change daily, plus family photo archives dating back to 1993. If you choose this method, be sure to protect the directory so you don't find the pages indexed by search engines!

I think it's really cool, Lisa, that you're making a point of helping editors learn this valuable lesson. You never know how important it is until you've lost everything.

That does sound scary HealthyMom! It's part of why I have travelogue pages on my personal website where I have all my trip photos. I figure even if my home system does crash and all my backups burn, that the website (which is hosted in North Carolina) will still have those trip photos. Still, that's not really a solution that everybody wants to do!

I'm busy backing up all my files as I type

FROM what i have read my windows XP home edition DOES not have the capabilities to back up so that is why i have lost everything several times when something gets corrupted i do a recovery from disc that i purchased from HP and start all over I upgraded my pc memory myself but i have yet to understand backing up stuff to an external harddrive??