Hi all,
       i need to back up (before its too late) all my photos,vids and music files from my pc.
My files are too big for the online freebie virgin offer so i need something i can do at home.
My problem is i know nowt! I've read reviews etc on websites that talk about formatting and god knows what about external back up drives so i'm basically scared!
Is there anything on the market that you can just plug into your pc and it automatically saves and backs up our files without too much intelligence?
Qvc did one,the click free,but one review i read said that if files where deleted from your pc and you then plugged the clickfree back in it would delete the files automatically!Surely that defeats the purpose,or is it me being thick?
What i want is something i can plug in,and without too much tech knowledge,back up what i need.
Hope i make sense,any ideas?
Cheers.

I forgot to ask, how many gigs of stuff do you want to back up?
You can buy USB memory sticks that can hold 32GB, which is a shed load of stuff. I bought a 16GB stick for under £20 a while back and it can fit on your keyring.

I got myself one of these when I was last having computer problems
(luckily I managed to save everything)
Seems easy enough to use  

http://www.pricerunner.co.uk/pl/36-1038889/Hard-Drives/Maxtor-Basics-Portable-25...

They all require some work and some knowledge, whereas Trowelhead admits to total ignorance on the subject. Fair do's.

Easiest route is to buy an external hard drive. PC World currently have an offer of a ridiculously large one for ridiculously little money, but why buy one with more capacity than your computer's? Right?

So, get an external hard drive.

Fire up your PC and click on 'Start', then 'My Computer'.

Plug the HD into a USB slot on your PC.

You'll see it appear on the 'My Computer' screen, which will tell you what the identifying letter of that HD is. (Something like 'j' or 'h', or 'L'.) Remember that.

Click 'Start' again, only this time RIGHT CLICK it. You'll see 'Explore' there, second from top. LEFT CLICK on 'Explore'.

Every folder on your PC will appear as a list. Look for the identifying letter of your external HD on that list. Just note where it is.

Try clicking on various folders in that list. Places like 'My Documents'. You'll see a [+] sign by the side of folders, click on that and all the files within that folder will appear on the list. The [+] sign will have changed to a [-], clicking on that will make the list shrink back to the folder. Do that a couple of time until you're used to doing it.

Having learnt the lesson some time ago, I back up my stuff regularly. I do a routine back-up of current files as they're modified straight onto a memory stick, both as security and so that I have them available for transfer and storage onto my workshop PC and directly off the memory stick for my notebook. Once a week (Sunday morning) I copy all major folders onto an external hard drive. In the event of a major disaster, I never lose more than a day’s work on my PC. And if all three computers went down I wouldn’t lose more than a week’s work!

Anyway, I digress…

Simply left click on the folder to make all its files appear in the right half of the screen, or left click the [+] to open a list of all the files in that folder in the right half of the screen. Have a play around with that. (You can do it whilst reading this post if you want to!)

By moving the cursor over the folder you want to copy, you can LEFT click and hold and drag it over to the location of the external hard drive in that list on the left side and the entire FOLDER and its contents is copied across.

Opening up the folder, its contents are displayed as individual files on the right side. Left click on the file you want to copy, hold and drag across to the HD. That FILE will then be copied across.

Piece of piss really.

Just found it and downloaded it. Nothing. The files were extracted and sat there as two files. Nothing. There doesn't seem to be a way to 'install' the program.

The other "problem" is that the facility only seems to work on files, giving you the option to copy to another destination whilst that file is open, whereas the copy within 'Explore' allows copying of a full directory with all its contents; all its files are copied with one click and drag.

What am I missing?

Thanks guys,especially Joiner,it looks like even with my brain i could do that!
I was thinking of one of those little memory stick thingys but i would either lose it or one of the bloody kids would feed it to the dog or something!!!
External hard drive it will be then.(i wonder how much swearing there will be when i try!)
Think i will also try one of the online freebies awsell,you can never have too many back ups.
Thanks again all.

Joiner wrote on Aug 19^th, 2009, 8:30am:


A couple of things i think..

It isn't a program 4a start, it doesn't install.. it's a registry edit which adds the commands 'copy to' and 'move to'  to you context menu when you right click on something, and that includes folders or indeed anything else that you can right-click on, not just files.. i don't know where you got that from bud.

I've certainly never had any problem with it, either with XP or Vista and indeed in my honest opinion it's one of the very best & most useful 'tweaks' there is.. that was why i mentioned it, ironically enough.

Anyway, there is a reg file here (http://www.mediafire.com/?jqnjmx0ijdx) that adds the functionality when doubleclicked.. i'm guessing that that isn't whatever it was you had found?