Randall, I bought a Western Digital external (USB) hard drive, 250Gig. Newegg lists a Maxtor 500Gig external drive for $150. My WD came with an automatic backup utility that makes it bootable and even includes a scheduler. The timer pops every week on Wednesdays and I get a full backup during lunch. No muss, no fuss -- especially futzing around with media. The downside is like you say: if you have anything undesirable on your PC it will get backed up, too. Probably a good idea to clean the PC somewhat, do a full virus scan, run some of the spyware/malware checkers before your first backup. Good luck, -Mike
__________________ Michel David Lowe Purcellville, VA -----Original Message----- From: Computer Guys Announcements and Discussion List [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Randy Sent: Wednesday, May 02, 2007 10:21 PM To: [email protected] Subject: [CGUYS] back up question: what to back up and what doesn't need backing up? Have only done very sporadic and partial data back ups in past, but after hearing yesterday's CG's show (mention of cost of data recovery!) and seeming increasing problems with computer's performance, decided it's high time (past time) to start backing up all those precious files regularly. However, not sure which of the options in the back up utility that came with computer to use. Tempted to use option to back everything on computer up for comprehensiveness and simplicity, but wonder if this might mean backing up some bad and nasty things which might harm the back up disk (plan to burn onto rewritable DVD, as don't have any other good back up options that I'm aware of). I definitely want to back up email as well, unless I can export it all to some other secure venue. There is an option to customize back up in order to select what to back up. I could do that if I knew I was going to back up everything important and it also might be nice not to back up a lot of unnecessary, space consuming files. Any suggestions? Should I just use the back up everything option? Thanks, Randall ************************************************************************ * ==> QUICK LIST-COMMAND REFERENCE - Put the following commands in <== * ==> the body of an email & send 'em to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <== * Join the list: SUBSCRIBE COMPUTERGUYS-L Your Name * Too much mail? Try Daily Digests command: SET COMPUTERGUYS-L DIGEST * Tired of the List? Unsubscribe command: SIGNOFF COMPUTERGUYS-L * New address? From OLD address send: CHANGE COMPUTERGUYS-L YourNewAddress * Need more help? Send mail to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ************************************************************************ * List archive at www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ * RSS at www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/maillist.xml * Messages bearing the header "X-No-Archive: yes" will not be archived ************************************************************************
