Posts Tagged ‘User’s’

Backup Utilities Prevent User’s Nightmare

Backup Utilities Prevent Userâ??s Nightmare

Deadline:  1:00 p.m. â?? Monday.  Itâ??s Monday morning and youâ??re using your PC to place some finishing touches on your major presentation.  Suddenly, the power goes off in the building.  It is restored a few seconds later.  You hurriedly try to go back into your hard drive but find you cannot access your files.  You panic and scream, â??Oh. No!â? as you realize that your hard drive has failed and youâ??re important documents are gone.  And as you sit, frozen in terror, you wonder, WHY DIDNâ??T I BACK UP MY HARD DRIVE!!??

Why Make Backups?

Usually, people donâ??t regularly make backup copies of their PC files until theyâ??ve had such a crisis and lost very important data.  Information on a hard drive can disappear for a number of reasons:

It is important to back up your data so you will not lose all of your information if one of these incidents occurs.  By backing up regularly, you will still have a copy of your data if a failure occurs.

Where are my documents stored?

Your documents, for the most part, are stored into a folder called â??My Documentsâ?.  This folder is where Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Access store their data.  Here at LSAC, your documents are stored on a file server that is backed up everyday.  Besides Microsoft Office data, there is other data that also needs to be backed up that is located elsewhere in the hard drive.  This includes Internet Explorer favorites and your personal settings within the applications you use.  At home, you may also have data from financial applications, photo applications, etc.

How do I make backups?

First, one has to decide where they want to make backups to.  There are a few options:

·       Floppy drive.

·       Another hard drive.

·       A USB Thumb Drive.

·       An external USB hard drive.

·       To another PC, if it is on a network.

·       Buying a backup service on the Internet.

One way to copy your my Documents folder is to click and drag it onto the floppy drive or second hard drive.  The problem one may have is with the size of the My Documents folder.  If, for example, the My Documents folder is 2Mb, and a floppy is 1.44Mb, all of the contents from My Documents will not be able to go onto one floppy.  The system will prompt you to insert another disk.

The best way to backup is using the program called backup.  This program will look for all data files on your system and will copy it to any of the devices mentioned above.  To access the program, click on the Start button, then select All Programs, then select Accessories, then System Tools, then Backup.

Just follow the wizard that appears and your data will be backed up.  To restore a file that was backed up, just double click on the file that the backup software created and select restore.  It will then prompt you on what files you need to restore.

Donâ??t have the attitude that it cannot happen to you.  It is only a matter of time that you will need something important and it is not there.  For example, your childâ??s research paper that is due tomorrow.

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