Backing up

Now this may sound silly, but although I have used computers for over 11 years I have never backed anything up or even known what it is to back up.

Now I'm assuming it means to save stuff.

If so how? and why?

If you have a DVD/CD burner, back your data up on a DVD/CD disc.
You can get 4.5 gig on a DVD, or 700 meg on a CD.

I now use an external HDD to back up important files. Like yourself I never bothered to back up at all until last
November when my system crashed and I lost everything It depends if you are worried about loosing your files should you have a system failure.

Iv backed everything up to an external HD.

I learnt the hard way 3 years ago when my comp got a virus and i had to have everything re-installed. I lost a years worth of photos of my son and John and my first year together

I was talked into buying an external HD by a friend who lost everything. I couldn't bear the thought of losing all my precious photos. Apparently CDs/DVDs aren't infallable either and will deteriorate in time.
It's easy peasy to install HD and to tranfer, so hopefully all my photos are now safe.

ps, belt and braces job, all my piccies are on PC, CD and external HD

Never heard of DVD/CD's detriorating, provided they're not scratched, I've got CD's dating back 12 years, they're still OK.

Becky, buy an external hard drive....I bought a 500 gig one from pc world for 79.99 - I will go through it in about 6 months with the number of pics I take, but I'd rather have them saved somewhere like that than on CDs, (Personal preference) as I'd be devastated if I lost an entire CD filled with pics.

But is that all you can back up?

What I mean is can you back up your system in case it goes wrong. I'm only asking as at work I back stuff up but don't actually save it to anything, like cd's or a HD.
So can you save at a time when everything is working in case it doesn't? and retsore it to that point again?
Hope you understand what I mean!

So where are you backing up your files hun??

Yes. Do a search for "System Restore" on your PC. It will save a time and date on which to completly restore the system. You can set the PC to do this automatically for you every few weeks.

System restore is on by default to check this just right click my computer icon on your desktop and go to properties and then choose the system restore tab. This shows what drives are being monitored.

To access system restore just go to the help & support when it open look to the right of the page under pick a task and look for a listing UNDO CHANGES TO YOUR COMPUTER WITH SYSTEM RESTORE follow the wizard that starts and it will turn your pc back to a earlier time for you and it also tells you if it has or has not made any changes.

You can do a full manual backup of your pc with files and settings if you wish. Just open up my computer and go to properties and choose the tools tab follow the wizard that starts and this will back up you whole system so make sure either you have enough disks or space on your harddrive

External drives are good they are the more expensive version of DVD/ CD'S. I myself have my main harddrive partions so it's like having two harddrives but only having one physical one. Anything behind the partioned is safe and will be there if you had to reformat c: i now this from personal experience even thought he harddrive can die and if that happened you'll loose everything the same as you would if the same happened with a external on as well as they are a normal pc/ laptop harddrive just put in a case.