Re: I cannot believe it!!!

On 25/10/2007 in message <5obgujFm55utU1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> Alma wrote:

OK so we should back up - it would be most helpful if someone would give baby step instructions on how we should do this - It would be helpful not only to me but I do know someone else who would like to know:-))
I should be happy to do regular back ups to CD.

Step 1 is to never keep any data on the 'C' drive, never, never, ever, ever :-)

If your PC is set up with one partition on one hard drive though you would need a partitioning tool to shrink that partition and make space for a second partition for your data - since you should only need it once we could do with some input on any good free ones out there. We could also do with knowing if the recovery process on your Dell allows for recovery to just the 'C' partition or if it will over-write the whole HD. All my laptops allow re-installation to the 'C' partition but I haven't had to re-install my Dell Vostro yet, I haven't even looked at th CD's that came with it.

So let's see what input we get on partitioning before taking that step.

In the meantime what about getting an external hard drive, Firewire if you have a F/W connection, USB2 otherwise. That way you can run a batch file each night to backup up your 'My Documents' stuff at least. There's an article here:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/setup/learnmore/bott_03july14.mspx

about using the built in backup program, MSFT also have a free program which is a bit better but I can't remember its name - perhaps somebody could jog my memory?

If this is a desktop PC I can let you have a batch file that would backup to an external HD and then turn the PC off so you could run it each night when you've finished with the PC.

You could add an extra step by backing up to CD/DVD once a month on top of the external HD. CD/DVD is not a good backup medium though, I use DVD RAM (in cassettes) but the drives are few and far between.

--
Jeff Gaines Damerham Hampshire UK
By the time you can make ends meet they move the ends
.

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