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Windows XP Backup Made Easy
With that chore out of the way, you're ready to begin backing up.
By
default, the Backup utility uses a wizard that makes the process
straightforward.
To start Backup:
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Click Start,
point to All Programs, point to Accessories, point to
System Tools, and then click Backup to start the
wizard.
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Click Next
to skip past the opening page, choose Back up files and settings
from the second page, and then click Next. You should see the
page shown in Figure 1, which represents your first decision point.
Figure 1
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Decide What to Back Up
You might be tempted to click All information on this computer
so that you can back up every bit of data on your computer. Think
twice before choosing this option, however. If you've installed a
slew of software, your backup could add up to many gigabytes. For
most people, the My documents and settings option is a better
choice. This selection preserves your data files (including e-mail
messages and address books) and the personal settings stored in the
Windows Registry.
If several people use your computer—as might be the case on a
shared family PC—select Everyone's documents and settings.
This option backs up personal files and preferences for every user
with an account on the computer.
If you know that you have data files stored outside your profile,
click Let me choose what to back up. This option takes you to
the Items to Back Up page shown in Figure 2 |
Figure 2 |
| Select the My
Documents check box to back up all the files in your personal
profile, and then browse the My Computer hierarchy to select
the additional files you need to back up. If some of your files are
on a shared network drive, open the My Network Places folder
and select those folders. This option also comes in handy if you
have some files you now you don't want to back up. For instance, I
have more than 20 GB of music files in the My Music folder. To keep
my data file backup to a reasonable size, I click the check box next
to the My Music folder. This clears the check box from all the files
and subfolders in My Music.
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Decide Where to Store Your Backup Files
On the Backup Type, Destination, and Name page, Windows
asks you to specify a backup location. If you're one of those
exceedingly rare individuals with access to a backup tape, the
Backup utility gives you a choice of options in the Select a backup
type box. No tape drive? No problem. Backup assumes you're going to
save everything in a single file; you just have to choose a location
for that file and give it a name.
By default, Backup proposes saving everything to your floppy
drive (drive A). Although that might have made sense 10 years ago,
it's hardly a rational choice today. You'd need dozens, perhaps
hundreds of floppy disks to store even a modest collection of data
files, especially if you collect digital music or photos.
Instead, your best bet is to click Browse and choose any
of the following locations:
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Your computer's hard disk.
The ideal backup location is a separate partition from the one
you're backing up. If your hard disk is partitioned into drive C
and drive D and your data is on drive C, you can safely back up
to drive D.
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A Zip drive or other
removable media. At 100-250MB per disk, this is an option if you
don't have multiple gigabytes to back up. Unfortunately, the
Windows Backup utility can't save files directly to a CD-RW
drive.
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A shared network drive.
You're limited only by the amount of free space on the network
share.
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An external hard disk
drive. USB and IEEE 1394 or FireWire drives have dropped in
price lately. Consider getting a 40 GB or larger drive and
dedicating it for use as a backup device. |
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| After you've chosen
a backup location, enter a descriptive name for the file, click
Next to display the wizard's final page, as shown in Figure 3,
and then click Finish to begin backing up immediately. |
Figure 3 |
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Set a Schedule—and Stick to It
If you're disciplined enough, you can repeat the above steps once
each week and perform regular backups when you're ready. If you'd
rather not count on remembering to perform this crucial task,
however, set up an automatic backup schedule for Windows. When you
get to the final page of the Backup Wizard (see Figure 3 above),
don't click Finish. Instead, click the Advanced
button, and click Next to open the When to Back Up
page. Choose Later, and then click Set Schedule to
open the Schedule Job dialog box shown in Figure 4.
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Figure 4 |
| This example shows
the settings for a weekly backup on Friday afternoon—a good way to
make sure your week's work is protected. But you can set almost any
schedule you want by poking around in the extensive set of options
available in this dialog box. After you click OK to save your
changes, Windows XP runs the backup automatically. Just remember to
leave your computer turned on. All in all, you can count on
backing up 5 GB of data in as little as 10 minutes. And you don't
need to worry about shutting down running programs, either—thanks to
a feature called volume shadow copy, the Backup utility can
safely create a copy of any file, even if it's currently in use.
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