Back Up!

With summer officially upon us on June 21 it is quite likely that many of us will be experiencing rolling black outs  These events can be quite a nuisance and can cause havoc to your hard dive.  If you have ever had your hard drive crash you know the anguish you feel, is compounded by the knowledge that you could have completely avoided this by backing up your system.

 

Five years ago, backing up your system could be a tedious process, but thanks to today's travel drives and portable external hard drives the process is fast and painless.  I suggest you back up your computer at the end of each day, however, if this isn't possible then it is very important to do so on Friday's, or every time you create an important document that must not get lost.

 

Before we handle backing up your data, lets talk about organizing your data.  The more efficiently your data is organized the quicker and easier it is to back it up and locate a file.

 

I suggest you take a look at the "My Documents" folder on your desk top.  Open it up and take a serious look at it.  How many folders do you have in there?  How many documents?  Do you any folders?  Do you have folders with both documents and pictures in them and are you are clueless as to what they are?  If you have answered yes to any of these questions, follow the step by step instructions to clean up your hard drive before backing it up.  This will make it easy to find your documents and save valuble space on your backup drives.

 

1.  Go through each folder in your "My Documents" file.  If it's a folder holding pictures that you would like to save, send it over to "My Pictures" by opening up the "My Pictures" folder and dragging it over.  If you do not want the pictures, click delete.

 

2.  Once you have cleared out all the pictures out of your document file, focus on the documents you already have saved.  As you check each one and decide if the document is still necessary or not, delete it or create a folder.  For example, Aunt Sally sent you a touching mother daughter story you would like to save.  Create a folder in my documents and name it "stories" and then drag it in there.  Then lets say your nephew Joe sent you a great joke you want to save..  Create a file called "humor" or "Jokes" and drag it into there.  Create folders so that you do not have any loose documents hanging about your "My Documents" folder.  This is important because it enables you to quickly find documents as well as back them up.

 

3. If you come across any music in your documents folder you will want to move that into the "My Music" folder as well. 

 

This is enough for today, tomorrow we will cover pictures and music.