How to backup your computer software

Question

Getting into Windows Safe Mode.

Answer

Backing up your computer is an important step every computer user should take do if they do not want to loose any of their valuable data. This page covers steps on how to backup your computer incase your computer fails, gets stolen, or gets destroyed in a fire.

Do I really need to backup?

Yes. Everyone has some type of information on their computer that they may not realize is important until they loose it. For example, Internet bookmarks, documents, financial data, saved e-mail, music, pictures, saved games, etc. Also, your computer may appear to be working normally, but it or the hard drive in it could fail at any time and without notice.

Backup strategies

Backup to alternate medium - Backing up your data to an alternate medium such as a blank CD-R or DVD-R is one of the easiest methods to backup our personal data. This is the absolute bare minimum method of backing up your data.

Store backups online or at another location - If your home or office were to catch fire or someone were to steal your computer and backups everything would be lost. Making backups that you store at a friends house or storing backups online is the absolute best method of protecting your personal data.

Ongoing backup - Having a computer with RAID or running software that makes backups as data changes can help make sure data is protected as it is updated. This is the best solution for sensitive data that is updated frequently. For example, if you were writing a book having a backup that was a week old could result in hours of lost work.

Backing up data to an alternate medium

Making a backup to an alternate medium such as a CD-R, DVD-R, external hard drive, floppy diskette, tape drive USB thumb drive, and zip drives is one of the easiest methods to backup your data. Before backing up your data this way decide what medium is best for you. In the past floppy diskettes, zip drives, and tape drives were popular, however, have all been replaced with CD-Rs, external drives, and USB thumb drives. Below is a chart that rates each of these mediums, with 3 being the best rating and 1 being the worst rating.

	Cost	Speed	Ease	Capacity	Compatibility	Portability	Total
CD-R and DVD-R discs	3	1	1	1	3	2	11
External hard drive	1	3	3	3	2	1	13
USB thumb drive	2	2	2	2	3	3	14

Backing up to a CD-R or DVD-R

Backing up to a blank CD-R, CD-RW, DVD-R or other writable disc is easy but will require some type of software or operating system capable of writing to the discs. These type of backups also require the disc be inserted into the computer each time you wish to make a backup.

Backing up to an external hard drive

Backing up to an external hard drive if the best solution for anyone who needs to backup large amounts of data and need to backup frequently.

Backing up to a USB thumb drive

To backup to a USB thumb drive copy and paste the files you want backed up to the thumb drive.