Backing up data (again)

[chunkolini]

Hmm
Third attempt at this one.
First time i bought a nonfunctional external hard drive by Seagate, or at least it refused to work on my pc.
Second time I tried doing it online, gave up with that.
The one I tried attempted to charge me a lot of money for my 'free trial' and then I had to copy each folder manually.
This time I have lashed out on a Toshiba external 500gb drive.
I have copied the data onto it using Windows data thingy.
But it wont copy itself automically.
I am after copying the whole C drive as I have several sections on their for family stuff, work stuff etc etc. Big big files with lots of subsections.
is there a simple way of copying the whole caboodle over say once a week?
Not the word simple.
I have tried a couple of free downloads that dont seem interested in copying things in bulk.
My aim is to either have it done automatically or press a button once a week.
Any ideas, remember that I am not computer savvy.
Cheers, Chunko'.

 

[Shedendman]

have a read here
http://www.lifehack.org/articles/productivity/four-ways-to-automatically-backup-your-hard-drive.html

 

[rtbcomp]

Drag & drop if you want to do the whole lot.

 

[voipio]

Some software called "Beyond Compare" - fantastic for keeping particular directory trees synchromised across different drives, or even the whole C:drive. I use it to keep 100s of thousands of music, image and other files synchronised.

http://www.scootersoftware.com/

 

[Windy Miller]

What operating system do you use Chunko? XP? Vista? Windows7?

 

[mike os]

I use NTI Shadow, "on the fly" and acronis for weekly backups

 

[chunkolini]

Operating system? windows 7.
Drag and drop, on the main screen if I drag and drop the shortcut for the folder it just tries to copy the short cut not the contents.

 

[silversurfer]

Backup

Your Seagate external drive software should tell you how to do backups. Mine worked perfectly.

 

[chunkolini]

The seagate thingy would not do a damn thing on our PC, eventually I sent it back twice and got a refund.

 

[JoelC]

Microsoft sync toy is good for this, will do exactly what you want, very simple o use also. http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=15155

i found the the best drives with decent backup software are the western digital passport. The software is really simple to use and does what it says on the tin.

 

[chunkolini]

Joel, that looks promising, I am, taking the day off work tomorrow to do a load of boring stuff, will take time out to look at this.
I am sure that my hopelessness with the whole computer thingy is at the root of this nonsense.

 

[Windy Miller]

I'll have a look around at work tomorrow and see if I can come up with something for you Chunko...

 

[bigegg]

Dunno how much you have to back up, but for my essential stuff (accounts, customer designs) I put everything on "dropbox", and have the same account on 4 different computers, which aren't always turned on (so I have an old backup which is updated when I connect those computers to the net - each computer keeps a copy on it's hard drive)
Then, effectively, you are relying on dropbox's backup.
Obviously, it's not perfect - anything which *has* to be kept, I burn to CD and keep in a fireproof safe, but it's worked for me for the last 3 years.
Brilliant for transferring stuff to other computers as well -
simply install the software (or just log in to your account) and you have access to the entire filesystem from any net-connected computer,
plus you can "publicly share" any file or folder which is good for sharing pictures or files on forums.
www.dropbox.com
it's only 2Gb, but the more people you refer, the more space you get
(the above link is a referral link BTW)

 

[graffian]

Is there a windows version of rsync, I used to use it on solaris and linux to keep daily backups. I just backed up selected directories.
I used to back up to a whopping/huge/ginormous 2gb dat drive;-)

 

[Windy Miller]

Can you just not use the Backup and Restore utility that comes with Windows7?

 

[ajlelectronics]

Strange that nobody has come up with Acronis. It will do just what you ask. The backup is EVERYTHING including the OS. Subsequent backups are quick because it only adds the changes rather than starts again. You can set it to back up automatically in the background weekly, daily or whatever you choose. If you should have catastrophic hard drive failure, you can restore the lot in about 15 minutes, without having to mess about reloading the OS etc.