P.C Problem

[loz]

Clubhappy

First of all great news your PC is back to normal and no lasting damage done.

OK to the issue of backing up.

As you can imagine there are various options with different capacities and at different costs.

Most basic option is simply to burn onto CDROMS and therefore your only cost is buying the discs. Personally I think this is naff as if yiu have a lot of stuff you end up with quite a few discs and they end up falling down the back of a fridge because you never have to use them. By the time something goes pear shaped you either can't find them or you do find them and they are damaged.

Next up and still quite basic is using USB pens. i.e. something like this 2GB USB Pen. They come in different memory sizes (i.e. 512Mb, 1Gb, 2Gb, 3Gb) Handy in that they are portable so if you need to move files around it is easy and they are very small. However I don't rate them as back up tools as they are not that durable and again easily lost.

However based on what you have told me about how important your data is to you (both personally and professionally) I would recommend investing in am external hard drive. Plenty of models available with different capacity and different costs so this one is just an example External Hard Drive Depending on how much you pay you can get anyting from 40GB up to 750 GB. They basically plug into a USB port on your PC and act as a second hard drive. SO all you have to do is plug it in and you can see it via windows explorer just as you can your main hard drive. Very durable and reliable method of backing up.

The links I have provided are to products on the PCWorld website but I am not necessarily recommending you shop from them or buy these particular products - just using them as examples.

 

[Mod]

Burning it as data, through nero or alike on a cd/dvd is an option.

 

[clubhappy]

Cheers Loz and Mod , buying an external hard drive today , mate coming over to sort it for me .

I have so much info here , contacts , links etc etc ,all work related that are important , but i have a lot of kids and family photos , that cant be replaced and there more important than anything else .

 

[Mod]

Had the same thing happen to my PC about 2 weeks back clubhappy. The confusing part was, I was upto date with Virus protection and had firewall running, so they cannot do everything. I had to restore it back to factory settings, which obviously meant I lost about 34gb of stuff.

Running it up again, meant the PC was open to all kinds of trojans, etc, as the current updates were not installed.

Had another problem because of this yesterday, which a virus got onto PC, from a download I done. Was it a torrent? A dodgy site? No, it was a LEGIT trial copy of software from a LEGIT site (Alcahol 120% program). Again AVG or Firewall did not pick it up, and spent many sessions with a spy killer to rid it.

My first thought about the Hard drive is, if its in your windows, it wouldn't make much difference, you maybe still wont be able to get the stuff over to the new drive?

If you can copy the files over, then thats good, but if you cannot access windows, I cannot see it making a difference.

Have you tried using your windows disk as a repair?

I tried everything to save it, but it just didnt work..

BACK UP your stuff now everyone!! Its a chore to do, but if something gets into that hard drive, you will be glad you done it.

 

[loz]

Mod

Clubhappy's PC is sorted now so he won't have any problems with the hard drive and getting the files transferred onto it.

 

[Butch]

Sorry I'm a bit late but anyway just a few suggestions. If you're running Windows (of any flavor) God help you

; seriously, though, what I would do is to always save a duplicate copy of all non-system files (e.g. word documents, excel files, photos, pictures, music, etc...) on a CD. Actually, keep in mind that CD's do not last forever (but then, what does). I see more and more people now using portable hard drives (e.g. USB) for all their files (but not for the operating system).

I use a Mac now, and if you ever decide to change to a new computer, I would highly recommend one to you. But although I've also been able to get my dad and one of my brothers to switch, they still have a PC that is used in the household and I still have to provide tech support for it. Simply put, I've had to update Windows religiously (service pack upon service pack) plus 3 anti-spyware programs and a good antivirus program. Just having them is not enough either; you have to keep them updated and use them every once in a while to scan and repair.

Even after all this, the computer will slowly get bogged down, particularly with spyware (or let's say malware). If your computer takes more than 5 minutes to boot up, you know you've got a problem. And soon, you will need to start over again (format hard drive and re-install everything) to get rid of the problem. It's awful, but that is what you have to be ready to do and that is why it is so important for you to keep back up copies of all your "important" files.

Since I moved over to the Mac (about 4 years now)? I've had to reboot twice and haven't had to re-install anything (knock, knock).

We'll have to see what Windows Vista brings to the table in terms of security, but as far as I can tell, compatibility is not very good at the moment (Microsoft is keeping tighter wraps on what software can do to the system to try and make it stable and secure). So, if you want to go that route, be sure and check that Vista is compatible with whatever hardware you may be using, i.e. MP3 player, phone, PDA, etc...

Back up, back up, back up...

Cheers,

Butch