Next Point The next point to consider is where are the files located at present ? are they just in “my documents “ or are they pretty much scattered all over the computer. You have to bare in mind , if you don’t know where your files are located, no one does, this also goes for the guy you that you have to pay extortionate amounts of money to, to recover your files from your hard drive when it fails, if you don’t have a data backup . So if your not sure where your files are located, make yourself a hot drink and get familiar with My Computer or Windows Explorer and move your files into an area or directory that can be easily found and backed up. If your not sure how to got about finding your files read our article on searching your hard drive. Common file extensions are XLS – Microsoft Excel Doc – Microsoft Word PPT- Microsoft Power point TXT – Text Files RTF – Rich Text File BMP – Bitmap graphics image JPG – Jpeg image Gif – Graphics format image MP3 – Audio File AVI – Video Media Format There are lots more, but our search hard drive article will enable you to search and find any file as long as you know which application it was created in. Once you have found all of the files you need to backup, why not automate the process using windows data backup , Once you setup the template it only takes a couple of clicks to create a computer files backup all your files. Checkout our windows backup article , find out how to get the most out of windows backup. Otherwise you can just literally copy them to an external device or a secondary hard drive. If you’re using a secondary hard drive make sure it is an actual device not just a partition of the same hard drive and the original file, otherwise if the hard drive fails you will still probably lose all your files. Thought about where your going to back up your files to ? After computer files backup Checkout our backup hardware guide , and find a backup medium that’s right for you. So just to recap 1.Establish how frequently you need to perform a computer files backup 2. Find the files that you need to backup, if need be tidy / move them to a easy to find and backup location . 3. Backup / copy files to external storage device . |