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Turning back time

Posted by paul on January 19th, 2009

One of the most important things that you can do is make sure that the information on your computer is safe. This is especially important if you are about to install or uninstall programs or you are about to attempt to tweak your system by cleaning your registry or  changing your start up programs. There are several different ways that you can save your information, each one depending on what you are trying to do. Let us look at several of more common ways you can back up your PC.

Create a Set Point

restore

Windows has a feature called system restore that can be found in the system tools menu. Unless you choose to disable it to save hard drive space, this feature takes a periodic snapshot of your hard drive, allowing you to revert it if something goes horribly wrong and you need reverse time. The nice this about system restore, is that using the application does not spell doom for any documents that you may have saved since the last system check point. The only problem that I found with system restore is that it does not always have a recent check point and you might find yourself backing up your system to setting that are several weeks if not months old. However, it does allow you to create your own check points, which is something I strongly recommend that you do if you are about to do something major like clean your registry or install new hard ware or software.  To get started on creating a check point, simply click on Start, go to your system tools menu and click on System Restore.

Create a Back up File

The other option you have is to create a backup file.  This feature will allow you to create a file that contain all of your PC’s relevant information to be used in case of a major computer failure. Even if you choose to use system restore, a back upfilelike this could be handy and I recommend that you create one every several months (or weeks) to ensure your information is safe.   This back up feature can also be found in your System tools menu.

backup

When creating a backup dick, you are given several different options. You can create one that saves all of your documents and settings, which will allow you reinstall all of your documents as well as your favorites, desktop and cookie items.  If you happen to share your PC with another user, you can also create a disk of everyone’s documents and settings. Thirdly, you have the option to make a backup disk of everything that is on your computer, but be aware this could end up being a backup file of gargantuan proportions. Lastly, you can pick and choose which items you want to back up. This is a good idea if you know which specific files you want to save for posterity.

Choosing where to back it up

flop
For some reason, Windows XP still believes that it is 1996 and floppy disk drives can still be found everywhere and has drive A as the default storage site. If you happen to be knee deep in these little square disks, then by all mean I encourage to try to save all of your information on them. However, most people might want to click on Browse and choose to save their back up information either somewhere else on their hard drive ( if it happens to be partitioned)  or on another type of removable media such as an external hard drive ir a USB flash Drive.  do not ask me why, but this feature will not allow you to burn a backup CD ( at least I cannot get it to).

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