How often would you recommend backing up your computer system? Do you do a full backup, or just certain folders?

I think it really depends on your computer usage. Do you use it for work? Do you need to maintain a backup of articles, files, graphics, etc. that you may have to produce again and quickly?

I work from my home office as a virtual assistant. I also provide articles and web content for nine websites. With this in mind, I backup "My Documents" and save all files that I can to disk or CD on a weekly basis. I perform a complete system backup once a month. I also maintain a "System Restore" disk in case I mess up with my firewall and virus scan and lose my pc altogether. (Yes! It has happened before!)

Just my thoughts,
Kitty <img src="/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />

I do a backup of my working files weekly to tape, but I rarely if ever do a full system backup. I guess my feeling is, with two 80 gig disks, that it'd just be easier to reinstall the software from CD than to try to get that data onto a tape. If the system went down I'd have the weekly document tape to go to, and that would have my key data. I guess I wonder if weekly is enough ... maybe I should do it more often, because redoing an entire week's worth of work would be a royal pain ...

I'm just now coming into the forum here and have requested moderator status for the PC Advice forum.

Lisa ...
In answer to your question, I think you've sort of answered it for yourself. I usually recommend backup based on how active you are in document creation.

I don't do a full system backup either. It's a waste of your time to backup program files that you can reinstall in the event of a crash. I backup my document folders regularly, as well as my email address book, favorites folder, and some important system files. I do maintain a Recovery Boot Disk as well.

One suggestion you might consider, place a copy of any documents you create during the day into a temp folder on your desktop. At the end of the day, backup that folder only; and then delete the file copies. Perform your normal weekly backup as scheduled. It will protect your daily work from loss during the week.

HTH

At work, we target all our files into one folder so that if we need to back anything up, everything is in one place.

When I purchased this PC, I tried to put all my files in a folder called Archive. Everything is a mish mash again.

Don't forget too, that often, there is no CD for software as much of your stuff is downloaded or preloaded. Try to keep all your downloads together. If you have a CD-R or RW you can keep like files togehter to make backing up easier.

Angie

Good suggestion to backup your downloaded programs on to one CD, Angie ... I didn't consider downloads in my answer (mainly because I don't do alot of downloads myself)...

As for keeping things from getting mish mash ...
I keep my working files pretty organized in folders in the My Documents folder. I perform a weekly backup of My Documents but to assure I don't lose anywork during the week, I copy my daily stuff to a folder and back that up to another disk with a daily date on it. The original file remains in it's normal organized file folder and is backed up with the weekly. In the event of a crash, I can restore from the weekly disk and each of the days in between the weekly and the crash.

HTH