| Backing up your important files
Rose Vines wrote this tutorial
in the April 2002 issue as a guide to backing up your important
files. We still recommend taking the preventative measure of backing
up regularly, but Rose’s tutorial is also a useful complement
to Darren Yates’s video tutorial on how to get data off a
failed hard disk.
Every so often, someone tells me a story of a friend or relative
who lost the only copy of their doctoral thesis or their novel when
their computer went belly up. Usually, the story is couched in terms
like: ‘You're a computer expert. Tell me why computers are
so difficult/dumb/unreliable/dangerous’.
Of course, these tales aren't about computer fallibility. They're
about human stupidity. There's no sense in trying to put this gently:
if you keep your only copy of any important data on your computer,
you are inviting catastrophe. If you are writing The Great Australian
Novel and you don't have multiple backups – on paper as well
as on floppy, CD or Zip – you should have your computer confiscated
for your own good.
On the other hand, when people tell me they lost their browser favourites
or their email contacts, I have a lot more sympathy. Of course,
you should be backing up these things along with your novel, but
it's easy to forget the many little useful pieces of data lurking
on our computers. And, unfortunately, Microsoft makes it well-nigh
impossible to locate some of the data you're likely to want to protect.
For example, take a look at this screenshot of Microsoft Outlook
Express. It shows where this program stores those all-important
email messages, stuck six folders deep in a subfolder of an outlandishly
named subfolder. No wonder people forget to back up their email!
Whichever programmer thought up this little scheme should be sent
to reprogramming camp.
Look for your data files
So, how do you ensure you back up each and every bit of important
data? The trick is to organise your data logically, create a backup
checklist, and perform regular backups using your checklist to guide
you.
This may sound like a fair amount of work, but once you've laid
the groundwork, the whole thing becomes close to automatic. Your
backup software should let you save your settings, including all
selected files and folders, and run a backup at any time or on an
automatic schedule.
When organising your data, the place to start is with My Documents.
As much as possible, use My Documents as your central repository.
Store documents there as a matter, of course, and then use subfolders
to categorise your data.
Some programs, such as the Microsoft Office applications, automatically
use My Documents as the default Save As folder. If possible, change
the settings of other programs so that they also use this as the
default location for saving files. If that's not possible, or if
it's inconvenient, take note of where applications save files by
default, and add those locations to your master list of folders
to back up.
For instance, Lotus SmartSuite applications store documents in subfolders
of \Lotus\Work, so if you use SmartSuite, you should add that folder
and its contents to your backup list. Another example is Webshots,
the wonderful desktop wallpaper program (http://www.webshots.com/).
It saves all downloaded wallpapers in WBC files in the \Program
Files\Webshots\Collection folder. And Post-It Notes stores your
notes in the PSNData file in \Program Files\3M\PSNotes2\.
Take note of all your programs which store data or save documents
and add their locations to your backup list.
If you regularly download programs, updates, patches and other files
from the Internet, create a Downloads folder within My Documents.
There you can store all those downloads which you think you'll need
if you have to reformat and reinstall Windows.
Moveable My Documents
Keep in mind that My Documents moves around, depending on the version
of Windows you use. If you have a single-user 98/Me system, My Documents
is likely to be C:\My Documents, unless you've specifically changed
the folder. If you are using Windows NT, Windows XP or a multiuser
system, things become more complex. On NT, check out the \winnt\profiles\username\
subfolders; on Windows XP, check through the contents of \Documents
and Settings.
And on multiuser systems, make sure you back up not only your data,
but the data of all other users. One way to track down all the My
Documents folders is to use Find/Search.
- Click Start –> Find/Search –> Files or Folders.
- Type documents in the search box and click Search Now.
- Note all those folders which should be included in a backup.
Use Find/Search to track down specific filetypes you're likely
to want included in a backup, too. Some filetypes to search for
are: *.dbx (Outlook Express mail files); *.pst (Outlook mail folders);
*.ost (Office offline message store); *.pdf; *.dot (Word templates);
*.pab (Exchange address book).
Don't worry about including not-quite-essential files the first
time you perform a full backup. For instance, not every file in
My Documents and its subfolders may need to be backed up, but do
it anyway. It's much easier to create a backup which includes a
folder's entire contents than it is to go through your whole computer
and select only those files that are essential. You may need an
extra CD or Zip disk for your backup, but after that first full
backup, you need only do small, fast differential or incremental
backups to create copies of new or changed files.
Creating a backup
Once you have your master list of folders, it's time to run a full
backup. In fact, consider two full backups. Once you've completed
the first backup, take the backup disks and store them somewhere
safe – off premises, if possible. Then do another full backup
and keep these disks close at hand.
For home environments, a simple set of full and differential or
incremental backups should be sufficient. For business backups,
consider implementing a rotating strategy where you have one backup
stored off-site, one backup for the previous period, plus the current
backup. Some businesses go further and have a full week or month's
worth of daily backups on hand. It all depends on the value of your
data.
To create your backups, you can use Windows’ Backup utility
or you can use a third-party backup program. My choice for home
and small office environments is Second Copy 2000 (from http://www.centered.com/,
but we’ve also included a trial version
on this CD). Second Copy has a beautifully simple interface and
tons of options. And once set up, it will automatically back up
your data on a regular schedule.
Whichever program you use, when you perform a full backup, make
sure you enable the option to clear the archive bit on the source
file. This marks the file as backed up. If you modify the file,
the archive bit will be reset, allowing the modified file to be
included in a future differential or incremental backup.
A trial restore
One of the reasons I like Second Copy is that it creates direct
copies of files on the backup media. That makes it easy to restore
a file, as all you have to do is use Windows Explorer to locate
the file and copy it back.
Microsoft Backup, on the other hand, combines all files into a backup
set (a QIC file). To restore a file from the set, you must use MSBackup
once more to open the set, then search through it for the file you
wish to restore. That adds a level of complexity – and danger
– to the whole operation. What happens if your QIC file gets
corrupted? There goes your entire backup. On the other hand, with
Second Copy, if one file becomes corrupted, the others remain intact.
Regardless of which program you use, make sure you run a restore
operation, whether that's a simple copy or an actual Restore, before
you need to. This ensures your backup media is OK and that the files
have been backed up correctly. And remember that backup media degrades
over time – even CDs.
What to include in your backup: a checklist Folders
- My Documents
- Downloads folder
- Windows\Application Data
- Windows\Cookies
- Windows\Favorites
- Windows\Local Settings
- Windows\Desktop
- Windows\All Users
- Windows\Profiles (for multi-user systems)
- \Documents and Settings (on Win XP systems)
- Winnt\profiles (on Win NT systems)
- Default File Save locations for applications.
Items
- Normal.dot and other Office templates
- Email folders
- Address books
- Favorites
- Money/Quicken/MYOB Accounts
- Webshots collections, Post-It Notes and other program data
- Downloads/updates
- Recorded music
- Digital photos
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