Doing a backup-not sure if posting in right forum

[debby]

For Christmas my husband gave me a Seagate portable hard drive to backup my computer. So I plugged it in, installed it, read about it, but still not sure about what I'm to do. At 10:00 p.m. tonight it is scheduled to backup my computer, my drive c, personal and public folders. Am I supposed to backup the whole computer??? He bought it because earlier this month I downloaded the new version of my antivirus program and it stuck a password page on it and I had never used a password and we couldn't get into the computer, not even in safe mode.  I ended up having to take it for repair ($202.00), which he ended up having to uninstall Vista and reinstall it. I lost a lot of stuff, all my husband's music downloads, my email addresses, but he did manage to save My Documents, My Pictures, and a few other things. Can anyone help me with this, I'm somewhat computer stupid and I'd just like to know if having this start a full backup at 10:00 is the thing to do.  Thanks in advance.

Debby

[Broni]

Instead of backing up certain things, you best option is to create an image of your hard drive.

Acronis True Image: http://www.acronis.com/ - not free, but the best

Free alternatives:
- Macrium Reflect: http://www.macrium.com/ReflectFree.asp (highly recommended)
- DriveImage XML: http://www.runtime.org/driveimage-xml.htm
- SelfImage: http://www.excelcia.org/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=21
- Paragon Drive Backup: http://www.paragon-software.com/home/db-express/

[Geek-9pm]

Broni,
Please make it simple.
All she wants to know if using the Seagram Seagate backup will do the job.
She did not say which product . Seagate makes a number of products fro home use that make it easy for most people to do a daily  backup.

Yes, the Seagate  thing is good.

(For some some reason the spelling checker ...
keeps changing Seagate to Seagram.
Did you do that , Broni?)

[Allan]

debby - I agree with Broni. Use disk imaging software once a week to create an image of your hd and save it on the new External drive (be sure to delete the old image(s) or you'll quickly run out of space). You can ALSO backup key data files separately just as added security, but the image will cover everything.

[patio]

The new Seagates actually ship with a version of Acronis True Image....
It does not do everything the paid version does however.

[soybean]

Since that new Seagate portable hard drive is probably plenty large enough to hold complete images of your internal hard drive, I guess I agree with Broni and Allan here.

I have an external hard drive enclosure that has a 40 GB hard drive (HD) in it.  I originally only had a 10GB HD in it, so I got in the practice of backing up selected folders and files rather than saving entire drive images.  I just use the Windows Backup utility that comes with Windows XP for this.  Backup "jobs" can be saved.  I presume the Acronis software that comes with your Seagate portable hard drive also allows for saving backup jobs (maybe it uses a different word for this). 

Here's an example of saving a "job".  I want to use one backup procedure to save My Documents, email messages, and some folders outside of My Documents.  So, in Windows Backup, I select the desired folders and/or files and name, i.e. save, that job.  Then, the next time I want to run the same backup procedure, I do not need to repeat the process of selecting folders and/or files to be backup up; I just select the saved job and run it.  I have another saved job for backing up a HD partition I use for downloaded software and another one for certain other files. 

One thing you should do, whether you create an image of the entire hard drive or selectively backup certain folders and files, is to test restoring individual files from the Seagate portable hard drive.  You can do this by renaming a file on your computer, a file that was previously backed up to the Seagate portable hard drive, and see whether you can restore that one file.

[Geek-9pm]

soybean, I like your post. Hope the OP likes it too! 

[soybean]

Thanks.   

[BC_Programmer]

Right now I backup using PowerArchiver; I have a backup script that executes every morning at 3:30AM that backs up my project folders, and compresses them into a dated 7-Zip ultra compressed archive on my external 160GB disk; the files I backup are a "mere" 500-750MB or so, and compress down to about 250MB. I usually keep about a week or so worth of backups, usually more. One reason I do it this way is because my externals are 500GB and 160GB, the 500GB is "well used", being it's the old drive that would still boot if I put it in my old PC; and these are far too small to backup my 750GB C: drive and my new 1.5TB D: drive, so I have to resort to the "picky and choosy" method, which is pretty easy; a single folder on drive D: is personally all I care about. It contains my life's work, and losing it once was enough! PowerArchiver isn't a free program, but there are many free alternatives that can image drives in a compressed form as well as archiver programs that can compress a subset of a drives files, and of course the backup programs included with windows XP Pro and higher work just as well, too.

I'm personally only really big on backing up things that I cannot easily replace; I can easily reinstall windows, office, etc from my CDs, and redownload the other various applications, but rewriting the program code I have could take years... that's not even an exaggeration; I lost almost all of my projects after a hard drive failure (well, after a series of hard drive failures) and I've only re-created three of around 20 projects that I had. The three I have recreated are many many times better, and I doubt I would have rewritten them to be better had I not lost them to begin with; but, I don't think I would like to see if I can duplicate that effort today...

[Geek-9pm]

BC,
Does it also make coffee?

[debby]

Wow! I got a lot of help but not sure what the heck everyone is talking about:

Broni - As usual, you always give me good information, this time however, I'm not sure I understand it all.

Geek-9pm - Thanks, I need simple!

Allan - I guess I did total image of computer - took 2 hours, 15 minutes on Seagate. So you are saying in a week I need to delete it and redo it?

patio - Did not see anything that said Acronis True Image on anything.

soybean - Okay, I understand everything except how to rename a file and then see if I can restore it.  How do you rename a file?

BC_Programmer - totally lost me at backup script, project folders, compressing and 7-Zip, etc.  Huh???

Remember what I said - I AM computer stupid.  All help is appreciated though, as I surely need it and want to learn.

[Computer_Commando]

Is this what you have?
Seagate® Replica™

[Broni]

So you are saying in a week I need to delete it and redo it?

No, next time, you'll perform so called "incremental backup", which is going to be much faster and smaller. It'll back up only those files, which changed, or were added since the backup, you just did.

[patio]

patio - Did not see anything that said Acronis True Image on anything.

Did you recieve a CD with the drive ? ?

[debby]

No, no CD.  It is Seagate: FreeAgent Go Portable Drive.  The box says:

FreeAgent Go Drive
FreeAgent software pre-loaded on drive (Windows only)
Quick start guide

Compatibility:  Windows XP/Vista    -   and I have Vista

[Computer_Commando]

...It is Seagate: FreeAgent Go Portable Drive. ...
FreeAgent software pre-loaded on drive (Windows only)...I have Vista

http://www.seagate.com/ww/v/index.jsp?locale=en-US&name=freeagent-downloads&vgnextoid=3723b5b59b7d5110VgnVCM100000f5ee0a0aRCRD
Backup software is unfamiliar to me.  Appears to be file and folder backup only.

...I'd just like to know if having this start a full backup at 10:00 is the thing to do.  Thanks in advance...

Sure!  Whatever works for you is fine.  Any type of backup is better than no backup.

[Allan]

You can do incremental backups as suggested above. Personally I prefer to just do a full backup of my system partition a couple of times a week, but it only takes me 10 minutes per system (again, my drives all have multiple partitions so the system partition backup is varies in size from 4-12 GB depending on the computer). I keep the most recent 2 images at all times.

[debby]

Okay, Allan, how do you partitian a drive? I haven't a clue as to what that is. Ten minutes would be ideal over 2 hours and 15 minutes. 

[Allan]

I'm not suggesting you partition your drive, and at this point it probably won't matter in your case because everything is already installed on c: drive and you can only relocate data, not programs, and data are typically the least space consuming files. There's nothing wrong with doing the incremental backups.

[Geek-9pm]

For most users a full backup once or twice  month then followed with incremental backups twice a week , or even daily,is good practice.

This is not just my option.
The is the general idea often given by others.

[soybean]

soybean - Okay, I understand everything except how to rename a file and then see if I can restore it.  How do you rename a file?

Open Windows Explorer (see paragraph below on using Explorer), navigate to the folder containing the file, right click on the file and select Rename.  The purpose of doing this is to make the backup/restore software you're using think the file does not exist at the location from which it was backed up and it will go ahead and replace the file from the backup image.  If you try this without renaming, the restore procedure should stop and tell you that the file already exists, and then ask whether you want to replace it.  By renaming the file before starting a test restoration, you're simulating a situation where the original file you backed up got inadvertently deleted, lost, corrupted, etc., and you want to restore it from your backup.  So, think of this testing of restoring a file as your fire drill, or tornado drill.  You want to know you're prepared for the actual disaster by practicing before it happens.

To open Windows Explorer, you can right click on your Start button and select Open Windows Explorer.  If you're not familiar with Windows Explorer, this reference should be helpful: http://www.edu.pe.ca/journeyon/pro_d_pages/file_management/FileManagementinWindows.htm.  All computer users should know how to use Explorer; it's a basic tool for folder and file management.

Note that if you use incremental backups, you can have multiple versions of files in your backups.  An initial, full backup would contain all files in the folders selected for backup.  Incremental backups following a full backup will contain later versions of files for files that were changed since the initial/full backup. 

[debby]

soybean, when I clicked on Start, I see NO Windows Explorer on there. I see Internet Explorer, but no Windows Explorer.  I guess this means I'm missing it, huh?

[BC_Programmer]

The option is actually captioned "explore".
Don't forget to right-click, by the way, otherwise you won't see it

Another method is Start->Run (or start->search in Vista), or pressing the windows key and R and the same time (my favourite ) and typing "explorer" and pressing enter. Windows Explorer should appear.

Yet another method is to open the start menu (standard left click) and choose "My Computer" or "Computer" which is basically windows explorer with a slightly different layout, but still the same functionality.

[soybean]

The option is actually captioned "explore".
Don't forget to right-click, by the way, otherwise you won't see it

Oops, sorry about that. I was using Windows 7 when I posted that and stated how to do it in Windows 7, not Windows XP.

[patio]

soybean, when I clicked on Start, I see NO Windows Explorer on there. I see Internet Explorer, but no Windows Explorer.  I guess this means I'm missing it, huh?

Start/Programs/Accessories/Windows Explorer....

HINT: This shortcut can be dragged to the Desktop so you have it when needed.

[soybean]

A shortcut to Windows Explorer can also be added to the Quick Launch bar if you use it.

[debby]

OKAY!!  I found it!  Cool!! 

Thanks everybody!