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PC Backup Guide

Today we can’t imagine a day without the PC. We use computers to shop, pay bills, work, talk with friends, for fun. Computers have replaced the music, video and DVD players, encyclopedias and even postmen. On a computer, we can read the newspapers, watch the photo albums, keep memories of celebrations … anything we can do today with a computer. As a result of these our habits, the computer accumulates more and more of the important data.

As you probably have the experience, computers are prone to failures, as well as all others electronic equipment. The different malfunctions of the hard disk, motherboard and processor can happen due to many reasons. Overheating or bad weather conditions can destroy almost all computer components.

Whether you use a computer for business or for the private purpose, a regular backup of data stored in the computer is a very important habit. If any of components stopped to work, it can lead to the total failure and data loss, so it is very important that in such cases, you will be ready.

When the failure happens, you can breathe with a relief because you have done all that is necessary to protect the data.

When is backup so important?

Regular backup of data is vital for any company. The loss of the important business information can lead to catastrophic consequences for the company operations, the loss of customers, a big drop in sales, and even sometimes can cause the closure of the company.

The ordinary home users who don’t perform regular backups of your data are at risk of losing a precious memories, contacts with friends or important information. Although the data loss for an ordinary user will not cause the economic collapse, it can be very unpleasant, frustrating and often heartbreaking. Just imagine that you lose all the precious pictures and video clips from your computer.

Then comes the question – why only a small number of computer users perform the regular backups of data?

3 most common excuses why users don’t make the data backup:

Too busy to do it

Today, we are all busy with work, family, socializing with friends and to fulfill our daily life and it’s hard to find time for some boring stuff like a maintenance of the computer.

The good news is that producers of the backup programs make lives easier and simplify data backup so that it doesn’t represent an additional obligation in daily life.

Through the scheduled data backups, our computer automatically performs the data backup of our choice in the selected period of time and as often as we want. Then we will have enough free time to enjoy with family and friends or just to watch a football match.

Don’t know how to do it

Most of the users are aware of the importance of data backup but have no idea where to begin. To make it easier, the basic step for a successful data backup is the choice of the type of media on which you will back up your data. The choice is really big, from a CD, DVD, USB memory to the external USB hard drives.

One of the best ways to back up the data is to a remote FTP server. This type of backup provides us the possibility to store data in a remote location to avoid the risk of fire, earthquakes, floods or other natural disasters, but also to exclude the risk of losing the confidential data if someone stole your computer.

My computer is so good that it will not spoil

My computer is so expensive and good that will never spoil and why should I back up my data from it?

When we sit in the car, the first thing we do is to attach the seat belt even we don’t expect to have a traffic accident every time when we include ourselves in the traffic. But if the accident happened, we are protected and often the belt saves our lives.

The same thing goes for the data backups, as the regular backups of data preventively protect us from losing the important information. The difference is that when it comes to the computer, it is no longer a question “if it happens,” but “when it happens”. Below, you’ll find a complete PC Backup Guide.

System restore

System Restore is a safe way to back up or restore the condition of your computer at a time when everything was working properly.

This is a system tool that helps to return the computer to the state before the changes that have been made in the Windows OS such as drivers, installed programs, registry keys, and the other changes. The system doesn’t restore the deleted documents, pictures and other personal files.

If System Restore is enabled, it makes a periodic backup of your system disk and it is called “System restore point”. Also, System Restore creates the new restore point whenever a new drivers or program has been installed. It is possible to do it manually if is necessary.

If you notice that you have problems with Windows or you have installed some programs which cause troubles or make your system unstable, it is very easy to return the computer to the state (restore point) when everything was in order and to continue to work as nothing happened.

  1. To do this, first, you need to open “Control panel” and select “System”.
  2. On the left side, click “System protection” section and click on “System restore”.

There you can back to the recommended restore and choose a different restore point.

To create a new restore point, under “System protection” tab, click on “Create” button, named it in the new window and confirm with “Create”.

When you decide to make a backup, in the text bellow are shown the most important things that you should back up:

Files and Folders

The three locations with the most important files on your computer are Documents, Desktop, and Program files. The majority of your files you kept in a folder on the Desktop or in Documents folder where Windows, as default, put the most of the documents, photos, music, office documents etc.

As users continually save files in these locations, they can be very large and usually it is impossible to back up them to a single CD or DVD. Also, some systems don’t have two partitions on the hard disk, so they are unable to back up the data to another partition. Another problem is that C partition might be small with a little of space on it. This last problem is a little more difficult to solve and requires saving all important data including installation files of the programs and similar things to another disk or CD/DVD drives and a complete partitioning of the disk.

If you have multiple partitions, and comfortable C partition (minimum size of comfortable 50 GB for safety during the installation of the next OS). It is necessary to copy all the data from folders mentioned above (including all folders that are in them), to another partition. First, check if the partition (D for example) has enough space and create a directory in it and named it “Backup” and in it a sub-directories for example “Old documents, old desktop and old programs”. Then, all the data from the above folders, copy the appropriate folders in “Backup” directory. Only pay attention to the “Program Files” directory because you don’t need to copy everything but only the program you use. Exclude the large software packages such as Office, Photoshop, Corel Draw, etc. If you aren’t sure where the program is located, click with the right mouse button on the icon which starts the program, select “Properties” and then look what’s written under “Target”, because this represents the location of the program.

If you don’t have enough space and you are forced to save your data on CD/DVD discs, it is best to archive all the data and check the validity of it before reinstallation of the system. For all this there are a bunch programs but it’s best to do it manually.

Once again draw attention to the “Program Files” where you are a large amount of data which will not be usable after the reinstallation of the system. Therefore, check what it contains and select only those programs that are smaller and which will be able to work after the installation of the system.

If your computer have some folders that you have made manually, and in which you saved your files, include them in the backup in order to save your important data.

Gmail

Google’s popular Gmail service provides users free e-mail accounts with a lot of space, quick search, and access from any web browser. Given that a large number of people have a Gmail account, and there is always the possibility that something bad can happen, whether it’s a malfunction or failure of the user, you can lose your emails. Therefore, it is very useful to have a backup copy of contents from your Gmail account.

What we need to do in order to make a backup of your Gmail account is to access the Gmail account via IMAP, which is disabled by default. So, the first step is to log in to your Gmail account, click on the icon in the form of the gear (options), which is located in the upper right corner. Select “Settings” from the drop-down menu. Then click on “Forwarding and POP/IMAP” tab and enable IMAP.

The easiest and safest way to make a backup copy of your Gmail account is to download all messages using IMAP client such as Apple Mail, for example. If you use this client to access your Gmail account, you will have a local copy of each message.

If you already use IMAP client for other accounts, you can add your Gmail account as well as any other IMAP account.

In Apple Mail, choose “Preferences”, click on “Accounts”, and select your Gmail account from the list on the left. Click on “Advanced”, and in “Keep copies of messages for offline viewing” pop-up menu, select “All messages and their attachments”.

From category: How To

Browsers

Imagine that you have a program which can help you can to save your profile and settings for multiple browsers you use. From now on, you can easily backup and restore your settings and profiles with a program that will be described in the text bellow.

FavBackup is a very simple program for storing the data from multiple web browsers, and the whole can be done in just 3 clicks. With this program that, you can save the history, bookmarks, favorites, cookies, settings and other data of the most popular browsers: Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Chrome, Opera, Safari and Flock. The program is free and portable, which means you don’t need to install it. Simply download the package, from this link http://www.favbrowser.com/FavBackup.exe, and run the .exe file from the folder where you saved it.

When you open the program, select the type of the backup that suits you and select the browser that you want to back up.

In the next window, select the options what you want to save from your browser. You can save anything and the most important are bookmarks, cookies, add-ons and extensions, search history, history of visited websites. Finally, select the directory where you want to save these data and click on “Next” button.

Then, you will see the progress of the backup, and when it is done, click “Finish”.

Drivers

Drivers are very important part of any OS. They are responsible for the communication between OS and devices. Without the proper drivers, the device will not work properly or not work at all. Earlier, drivers have been supplied on CD/DVD. Alternatively, you were able to download them from the website of the hardware manufacturer and is the best place to download the latest version of drivers. Today, on the new Windows OS, drivers apply automatically, but only in newer machines.

But sometimes, CDs can be lost or drivers are no longer available on the manufacturer’s website, as they stopped to provide support for that device. In such cases, the backup of drivers is very good option.

Double Driver is a simple and small software that you can use to backup/restore your drivers. It doesn’t have any fancy features, but it doing a great job. With just a few clicks of the mouse, you can make the backup of your drivers.

It is not necessary to install the program. Just download the archive from this link http://www.majorgeeks.com/mg/getmirror/double_driver,1.html and run the program file “dd.exe”.

In the window that appears, click on “Backup”, and then in the next window, click “Scan Current System”.

When the scan is finished, you will see the list of all your drivers. Put a checkmark next to the driver you want to keep, and then click on “Backup Now”. Select the directory and saving method and confirm with “OK”.

The directory with the program and the backup of drivers, keep on a disk, which hasn’t OS on it, burn to disc or copy on a flash drive.

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