But don't just keep saving the file over with the same name, use a Grand-
father, father, son scheme. After you've saved the original file 2 or 3
times, add a "-1" to the name. For example, I'm working on a article about
installing the front clip, and called it "frontclip". After I've saved it
a few times, I change the name to "frontclip-1". Then after a few more times
I name it "frontclip-2". Now if for any reason, the file gets corrupted,
you won't loose everything, you can go back to one of the eariler copies.
Assuming that you didn't have a Hard drive crash.
Once you know where your files are, you need to figure out how much you are
willing to loose. If the answer is nothing, than you need to back everything
up. But what is everything. Only YOUR data, your pictures, your music, etc.
You don't really need to back up the operating system.
I have never used any of the built in backup schemes that are coming with
the computers lately. I've developed my own over the years. Over the years,
I've used everything for backup from duplicate floppies, 100mb Zip drives,
and CDs.
The real problem is that our digital cameras are taking better - meaning
bigger - pictures, everyone now has a ton of music for their MP3 players on
their computer, etc. I remember my first Hard drive was 200MB. I wondered
how I'd ever use that much storage. Now my main drive is 100Gig and that's
over 1/3 full. The last backup I did is over 8Gig! Way too much for a
CD and I'm not going to spend the time to try write 16 CDs.
So in light of the amount of data people are storing, the only cost effective,
and expediant form of back is an external hard drive. I have a 40Gig drive
in an external case, with a USB connector. I keep it turned off, unless I
need some data off of it, or I'm going to run a back. Hopefully this will
increase the life of that drive, so that when my primary HD crashes, and it
will, I can pull my data back from this external drive.
How do I do my backups? Periodically, say once every 6 months, I do a
complete back of all my files. This includes ini files for various utilities,
and data files for things like the password programs I use to remember the
100+ passwords I have for all the different places I go. Remember I said
you need to know what you have an where it's stored?
So to do the complete backup, I simply copy all the directories I need.
After I have done the complete back, I then run "incremental" backups every
week. This only backs up the new files or the files I've modified. So
instead of trying to save the same 8Gigs, I only save a couple of 100Megs.
To do this "incremental" I have created a batch file I run that copies
the files for me. Here is the batch file:
John T. Blair WA4OHZ email: jblair1948@cox.net
Va. Beach, Va
Phone: (757) 495-8229
48 TR1800 48 #4 Midget 65 Morgan 4/4 Series V (B1106)
75 Bricklin SV1 (#0887) 77 Spitfire 71 Saab Sonett III
65 Rambler Classic
Morgan: www.team.net/www/morgan
Bricklin: www.bricklin.org
If you can read this - Thank a teacher!
If you are reading it in English - Thank a Vet!!
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