Newbie Guides Beginners Corner Backing up important files

Backing up important files

When's the last time you backed up any of your important data files? No, this isn't the old lecture about doing frequent backups because I know you probably don't and won't do backups frequently. It's too much of a hassle -- for me too. I've got 178 GB worth of hard drive space, so I don't own enough blank CDs to back it all up.

You don't have to do a total backup to give yourself a little insurance, though, and that's what I'm going to talk about.

The information stored on your hard drive can go poof in a split second, for a variety of reasons. Viruses are the current bug-a-boo, and they can definitely destroy your data. In my nineteen years of computing, though, I've only "contracted" a virus one time, and that took me an hour to diagnose and fix with no lost data.

You're far more likely to lose data from a freak electrical spike, a cross-linked disk file, or a brain burp on your own part. That's what I like to call those momentary lapses of intelligence, like when you copy a file, overwriting another drastically essential file by giving it the same name. The fact of the matter is that it's just a matter of time before something goes wrong, and when it does you'll have nobody to blame but yourself.

I've learned to operate under this assumption: anything and everything on my hard drive is temporary and could disappear in a split second. Knowing that sods law is going to strike sooner or later, I strive to make little backups as a habit, so that no important data file exists in only one place.

Many programs build in a measure of insurance by making a backup file every time you save a data file. In the PC world, these are often stored with the same filename but an extension of BAK. Think about how you could emulate this simple, logical step. The more copies of important data files you have, the better protected you'll be if one gets frazzled. I've actually had three backup files get wiped out at the same time--but I had a fourth on floppy to see me through.

Make a subdirectory called BACKUP and get in the habit of copying important files to it after you come out of an application program. If you have a second physical hard drive in your system, copy a backup copy of important data files to the other drive. That way if your hard drive crashes, you're still in business. (Though hard drives are very reliable, they all crash sooner or later!)

You don't have to do a total backup using hundreds of floppies or CDs. In fact, why waste your time backing up all those executable program files when you can reinstall them from the original disks in case of a problem.

Just backup your important files to floppies or CD using simple COPY commands--you know, like that database file with all the information about your 5,000 audio cassettes. If your file's too big to fit on one floppy, try using a compression program like PKZIP to squish it down to floppy size. There are also public domain and shareware programs that'll split long files across multiple disks.

And yes, once in awhile, when you've got an extra few hours and nothing better to do, do a total backup on your system. Even better, buy a tape backup unit so you don't have to swap all those annoying little floppies or hunt directories of CDs, but whatever you do, don't let any important file exist in only one place! Windows comes with its own built in backup tool.

The Windows Backup Utility can help you organise your backups properly. You can select which files to back up automatically and where to put them and set the utility to replace only those files which have been added or amended since the last backup. Backing up may be a hassle but it could save you a lot of grief. Make it part of your routine. It is important that you have more than one copy of any critical data files you have and preferably on more than one type of media.

Buying A New Computer

Your PC A Spring Clean