BACKUP DATA AND BURN CD

Gael Miller

June 14, 2007

          Two areas in computing that are not easily understood or done are to back up important data and where and how to back it up.  We will cover why and how to backup data and actually back some up to a CD for illustration.

BACKUP

First, why would you possibly want to back up your data when you can easily (?) find it on the computer?

1) All computers have a definite life which can be months into years.  A good rule of thumb is that problems will usually start when a computer is 3 to 4 years old.  Most operations in a computer are electrical but there are also some mechanical.  Electrical connections can go bad and no machine will operate indefinitely.

2) Have you ever deleted something in the computer that you actually wanted to save?  Tell the truth – everybody has or will do this, even the experts.

3) Power failure, New Computer, Malware, and others.

Next, you would have to decide what data you want to back up.  The amount backed up depends on the media used.  The possibilities that can be used include:

1) Floppy if your computer has one (1.44 MB).

2) Zip disk if you computer has one.

3) CD (about 700 MB).

4) DVD (about 4.7 GB).

5) USB flash drive.

6) External hard drive (160-500 GB).

Remember, unless you use an external hard drive and have a backup program, you will not have sufficient space to backup you operating system or the various programs you have on the computer.  Also you must know where your data is.  What is recommended is that everything that you would like to back up be saved in the ‘My Documents’ folder.  Realize that some programs (Quicken) store their data within the program.

You will have to decide what information to back up.  Generally you back up anything that cannot be replaced or reproduced easily.

1) Financial date – bank, stock, tax, etc.

2) Photographs

3) E-mail addressed

4) Favorites or Bookmarks

Now we will go to illustration of where data is, how to separate what you want to save and then backing up on a CD.  This is an illustration only and not written out.

Note:  Here are two items that could be hard to find to back up.

          OE Messages – open OE>tools>options>maintained tab>store folder and copy down the location.

          Address book in IE – open IE>file>export>address book.  Select Text file (comma separated values)>select site to backup to>name it>next>finish>finish

Finding the location of some items that are hard to find.

          OE Messages – Open Outlook Express>Tools>Options>Maintenance tab>Store folder.  Write down the location of email messages.  Do not have to back-up all, pick what you want.

          OE Address book – Open Outlook Express> Export>Address book>chose text file (Comma separated values)>Select site and follow directions.