cando
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Never used an external drive before so thought it time to invest in one....now that this genealogy bug has really taken hold. On advice purchased a Maxtor and as my tower was having a new CD/DVD drive installed, the tech offered to back up the hard drive for me.  Now how do I do it? I can see something called Nero Backitup Essentials....do I use this?
Cando
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jksdelver
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All I do is to copy all the stuff in 'My Documents' (ctrl a then ctrl c) then open up my computer find the external drive then paste (ctrl v) the contents on to there. In the end its only your records FH, and other documents that you want to save. I back up to the external once a month. Before I do I do a ged com of the FH data with the present date as file name.
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cando
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Thank you.... 
Cheers
Cando
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jksdelver
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No problem. I keep the external away from the computer in a safe place and just connect up on the back up date
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cando
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Hi downside
Yes I need to back my entire hard drive. Have been using USB Sticks to save my accounting and family history - using three for each application and rotating them when saving...just in case one fails to open. Too much data to continue that practice hence the purchase of an external drive.
I am wondering about the Nero Backitup Essentials that the tech downloaded - perhaps this is a 'management' tool/programme. Need to spend time having a look at it.
I will have a look at the freeware you suggested as well.
Thank you
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cando
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Thank you Falkym....having been having a 'fiddle' with it this afternoon and think I have the hang of it. I need to save the entire drive.
Cheers
Cando
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Nick29
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Hi downside
Yes I need to back my entire hard drive............
Are you really sure you need to do that ? This will take up a lot of time (especially via USB), and you'll need a backup drive of equal or greater size to back it up on. As already suggested, the only way to backup your entire PC data with any hope of getting it back is via an image file.
The point is that you'll be backing up stuff which you could quite easily re-install via the original program disks and CD's. Backing up your personal data (documents, emails, office documents and speadsheets, web favourites, cookies, etc) will take up much less time and space. Another way of preserving important data is to get a "Mirrored Raid Array" installed in your PC, which is basically a pair of hard drives, which both automatically contain the same data, so if one drive fails, the other one still has all the data on it. Obviously this sort of drive would not protect you against losing programs that you may have accidentally but intentionally wiped.
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Field - Luton & Islington Hole - Somerset, Suffolk & Surrey Farnish, Parker, Cattermole, Last, Wasp, Church - Suffolk Martin - Eltham & Greenwich, Kent (London) Lewin/Lowin/Lowen - Hertfordhire Stead - Greenwich, London (Kent) & Maidstone Wood - Hertfordshire Census information Crown Copyright, from www.nationalarchives.gov.uk |
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Nick29
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Not long now !
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Sorry, we'll have to agree to differ on that one. There's no way to re-install a Windows program from a backup unless it's from an image file, unless you're an expert on the Windows registry, because in most cases it's not just a case of re-writing the missing files and directories. Any programs which have been updated by internet updates will be updated again if re-installed.
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Field - Luton & Islington Hole - Somerset, Suffolk & Surrey Farnish, Parker, Cattermole, Last, Wasp, Church - Suffolk Martin - Eltham & Greenwich, Kent (London) Lewin/Lowin/Lowen - Hertfordhire Stead - Greenwich, London (Kent) & Maidstone Wood - Hertfordshire Census information Crown Copyright, from www.nationalarchives.gov.uk |
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jksdelver
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If you have the set up CD's or recovery ones I can't see the point of backing everything up. I have had to reload on a couple of occasions, each time it as updated. The main thing is to back up your personal files particularly the family history ones!!
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