| Backing Up Your Computer | |
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Backing up your computer regularly is very important. What would you do if your hard drive crashed tomorrow and you lost all your data? What would you do if your computer became infected by a virus and it corrupted all your files? What would you do if your computer was stolen? With a back up of your data you can have peace of mind! We recommend backing up onto an external hard drive using Norton Ghost 9.0 or 10.0. You can back up onto CDs or DVDs instead of an external hard drive but this can be a very long process involving a lot of changing, labelling and cataloguing of disks by you. You could also use Microsoft XP's built in back up system instead of Ghost but it's very basic and doesn't compress your data like Ghost does, so back ups take up huge amounts of space on your external hard drive. Adding the back up last in this guide we can help to ensure the back up you make is of a clean, defrag'd, up-to-date, virus free system. If you would prefer to use the built-in Windows XP back-up system, click here. If you're using Norton Ghost 9.0: Connect your USB hard drive and wait for Windows to see it. If a box comes up asking you what you'd like to do with it just click cancel. Start -> All Programs -> Norton Ghost -> Norton Ghost -> Back Up Drives -> Next -> select (C:\) (we are presuming this is the hard drive you wish to back up) -> Next -> Browse -> My Computer -> select the USB Drive -> OK -> Rename -> name it using the computer name and date, i.e. Office161006 or Home200307 -> Next -> set Compression to Standard -> Tick Verify backup image after creation -> Next -> Next -> Leave it to back up, when it's finished close both windows. As Norton Ghost compresses the back up file you should be able to have a rota of three or more back ups on an external hard drive of 160gb backing up a total 60GB data each time; week one make a fresh back up, week two make a fresh back up, week three make fresh back up, week four delete week one back up and make fresh back up, week five delete week two back up and make fresh back up etc. If you're using Norton Ghost 10.0: Connect your USB hard drive and wait for Windows to see it. If a box comes up asking you what you'd like to do with it just click cancel. Click Start -> Click All Programs -> Click Norton Ghost -> Click Norton Ghost -> Click Back Up Now -> Click Define New Back Up -> Click Next -> select (C:\) -> Click Next -> Click Next -> Click Browse -> Click My Computer -> select your Back Up Hard Drive -> Click OK -> Click Rename -> name it using the computer name and date, i.e. Office161006 or Home200307 -> Click Next -> set Compression to Standard -> Tick Verify -> Click Next -> Click Next -> Tick Create Recovery Point Now -> Click Finish -> Leave it to back up, when it's finished close the open windows using the X in the top right hand corner. As Norton Ghost compresses the back up file you should be able to have a rota of three or more back ups on an external hard drive of 160gb backing up a total 60GB data each time; week one make a fresh back up, week two make a fresh back up, week three make fresh back up, week four delete week one back up and make fresh back up, week five delete week two back up and make fresh back up etc. If you're using DriveImage XML: Connect your USB hard drive and wait for Windows to see it. If a box comes up asking you what you'd like to do with it just click cancel. Click Start -> Click All Programs -> Click Runtime Software -> Click DriveImage XML -> Click Backup -> Select the drive C: -> Click Next -> Click Next again -> Click on the image of a folder next to the Directory text box -> Browse to your USB hard drive and then use the Make New Folder option to create a folder with the day's date in its title -> Select the new folder -> Click OK -> Ensure that the tick boxes Split Large Files and Compressed are both checked and that the option Try Volume Locking First is selected -> Click Next and leave the backup to run.
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