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Backing up and restoring my computer

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Ideas posted: 4

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Two technological questions:

What is the best way to back up the files on my computer?

Right now I have a thumb drive that I copy all my work files onto each week and an external harddrive that I keep my personal files on, updated periodically.

Still, there are a lot of settings and smaller files on my computer (such as internet favorites etc) that I wouldn't want to lose. Is there a good way to back up everything? I'm a little new at this.

Also, what's the best way to restore a computer that has been working fine for two years but now is slowing down a bit? I have a netbook that I use for work that has been getting slower and slower these days. I would love to restore it but it doesn't have a CD drive.

Should I buy an external drive and use a standard restore CD or is there a way to copy the files onto a thumb drive and do a wipe/reinstall from that?

Category: Computers & Internet

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what you are doing is almost right because backing up on cd/dvd is too tedious and storing them is a further burden. With the increased hard disk sizes, your backup would never fit cd/dvd. However, on a windows machine, it is not yet possible to do a clean restore from a thumb drive, so for machines getting slower, the fastest and best option is to have a recover disk and after taking backup of personal data (any data that can be regenerated may not be stored) having a clean restore. For these machines using a good antivirus to check for viruses and worms may also speed up the system. As on date having an external cd is the best option for reinstalling on a netbook without a built in cd.

Dec 15, 2010

Thumb drives are eek. They break too easily. You can buy a dvd disc RW or two, or three depending on your needs, and a CD/DVD writer. Then you could do a yearly or monthly backup, whatever comforts you best.

You know with the netbook the easy way would be to sign up for Carbonite.com's free trial and use the redeem code 'Kim'. Which will give you a free month of online storage and access when you purchase it. Once your files are backed on carbonite.com ($15/month for every computer you own connected to the internet) and you can do your file wipe to your netbook, and then connect to carbonite and bring it all back to your netbook, or restore the files you don't want on your netbook to your main computer, and do a dvd/cd write.

Now the thing about Carbonite, is they don't like naughty pictures and bad video and they will report you to the authorities if they realize you have anything like that on your computers.

Dec 14, 2010

You can back up your computer safe and secure to an external service like the Instant Computer Backup I'm writing about on my Blog post >>

http://excelarticles.blogspot.com/2010/11/in-stand-backup-you-computer.html

''Instant Computer Backup encrypts your files using the same technology that banks use.''

Dec 14, 2010

I recommend Dropbox... See http://www.dropbox.com/

It's supereasy and not too expensive...

Dec 13, 2010