Back up your Computer NOW.

Do you back up your information ?
If you are reading this, then I am guessing that you don't.

Sigh. You should. You must.
If you lose all your files you will be very cross.

Let's start with the basics. USB sticks.
These things ...

Look at that - 4 Gigabyte of storage and they are CHEAP.
Go buy two or three.
Buy at least a 2Gb stick. 4Gb would be better.
I keep a 4Gb stick for all My Pictures.
I have 5500 pictures, which takes up 1.5 Gb.

Plug one into a USB port. (USB stands for Universal Serial Bus).
Go to My Computer.
Rename your stick so you know what it is when you plug it in.

Here I have called mine "backup usb".

Go to My Documents.
Right click on your folders with your important files, and SEND them to the USB stick.

That's it. Easy.
Your hard work backed up.

Back up all your WORD and EXCEL documents.
Back up My Pictures.
Back up My Music if you can find a big enough stick.

Here's mine.
I do this once a month, maybe once a week if I am busy writing stuff.

Why ?
Hard Drives can crash. The bearings can fail.
A fire. A theft.
USB sticks can also fail and die, so I have four and just keep taking turns with them.
You can carry all your work with you.
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Backup online.
You can also back up your documents to free online storage sites such as Google Docs and Office Live.

Google Docs is Google's free online document storage and editing centre. Free.

Office Live is a plug in to Word, Excel etc. which will help you store and share your documents online. Free, of course.

I have my resume and a few other important things stored there in case my house gets burgled or burns down, and also to have them accessible from any computer online.
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System Restore.
I'll get to this soon.
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External Hard drives.
I have an external hard drive for my main backup.
You can walk into any Tech Shop and they will have something you can just plug into a USB port and start.
Make sure you have your computer shop format and partition the drive.

I bought a Welland 3.5" External Hard Disc Drive (HDD) enclosure. $45 Australian.
This is just the storage box for the Hard Drive.

Inside that I put a Western Digital 500Gb Hard Drive. $105 Australian.
That's a lot of space, 500Gb. You can do many backups on that.

Here's the Western Digital product list to give you an idea of what's around.
So for $150 AUD, I have all my entire computer backed up.

This is an update slipped in on 7Oct2009. I have just noticed these WD My Passport external drives that just plug into your USB port. This is definitely the way to go. I can buy these for $80.



Here's what to do.
Buy that stuff and plug it into a USB port, just like that USB stick above.
Rename that new drive.
I called mine the "BackupDrive" and made it the Q drive (Get Smart, Agent Q).

(Don't forget that you have to FORMAT and PARTITION that disc drive.
Quite frankly, seek help from the company you buy it off. It's pretty easy but you do have to know what you are doing, um, and i forgot to take screen shots when I did mine.)


Then I went to My Documents and SENT all my Excel and Word documents to the Q Drive, just like I did for the USB stick.


Then I went to Start>Accessories>System Tools>Backup.

And away we go.

next

next
Choose what you want now.

next
Find that Q drive.
Give your back up a meaningful name.

next
In this case, I had a floppy disc ready to create a boot disc, but you can skip that.

next

next
Now go walk the dog, have a beer, it's gonna take a long time.

next
This is the end result. Windows backups.

All safe and secure on that external drive.

If you need to RESTORE, it's much the same process.

If you want to know how much space you have left,
go to My Computer and right click on the Q Drive.
My full backup takes up 60Gb.

Click on Properties.

Good, plenty of space left.
When it fills up, I will delete the older backups.
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Back up by syncing your computer with your phone.
I've just gone Android as of March 2011. Scored me the new HTC Desire HD on a plan, and it's a tasty piece of equipment.

I found an app called Evernote that will let me sync my notes between my phone and my computer.
I have thirty or so notes that I always had on my Nokia phones.
Now I have them all on my phone and my computer.

See my posts on Android HTC Desire HD apps.

Here's the link - Evernote on the Android Market.
Load that one up and try it out.
You'll have one more means of backing up your info.
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I'll think of yet another way, someday soon.

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Oh, I've gone to all this effort because this is IMPORTANT.
Good luck. Si.