Backup!

Post by **emanday** » Thu Aug 17, 2006 4:05 pm

There are plenty of great deals out there for external HD's.

After disaster threatened to strike

I got myself one. Am I allowed to give the web site of a very reasonable online supplier (Admin, please remove if I'm contravening).

www.misco.co.uk

DavidWW · Post by **DavidWW** » Thu Aug 17, 2006 4:09 pm

LesleyB wrote:hi all
My family database is backed up at the end of each day, both to my HD and another HD, and also every couple of days to a removeable memory stick which leaves the house with me!

Best wishes
Lesley

Lesley

Neat point re the use of USB port memory sticks ("flash drives") which are now available at very reasonable prices at capacities up to 512 Mb (e.g. Sony £23.99) and beyond (1Gb £25 to £35)..............

David

Post by **emanday** » Thu Aug 17, 2006 4:36 pm

1GB £14.99 + Vat from my stationery supplier

scml · Post by **scml** » Fri Aug 18, 2006 2:00 pm

I go with Bryan and backup onto CD's or DVD's but I also can back up onto my hard drive with my Legacy program, as it reminds you to each time you close it down. Then I alternate the programs backup between partitions on my hard drive so that if windows crashes I can reinstall windows without touching the partitions my program is backed up on. (One partition is on a smaller second hard drive in my computer)
So between a couple of backup partitions and CD or DVD copies about every month (or sooner if I do a lot of new entry), I hope to always have an up to date copy of my work, in case that dreaded day ever comes.

DavidWW · Post by **DavidWW** » Fri Aug 18, 2006 2:44 pm

setait wrote:Bryan wrote:
thought for the day:- "there are 2 kinds of PC user: those who keep backups and those who've never had a hard disk fail"
and you don't even need to have your hard disk fail. I managed to scramble my gene database file (not the software, just the data file) and it wouldn't unscramble. I'd got lazy about backups and the most recent one was a year old Although I've got hard copies of everything, it's taken a veeeery long time to go though every individual in my (year old) database and in my paper files to make sure that I'm back to pre-scramble state.

Sheena

Ouch

Let that be an object lesson to everyone in terms of at very least backing up your genealogical data, and that on a frequent basis, possibly even daily basis, especially if you're adding new data on such a frequent basis ............

As has often been said, it's not a question of if a hard disk will fail, but when, never mind some difficult to understand, in retrospect, process that led to your datafiles being scrambled (to use a polite term ! <g>).

It doesn't matter if you use proprietary software or simple, file copies onto floppies, 5 and a quarter, or 3 and a half; or CDs; or external drives, be those multi Gb HDs such as above; or the increasingly popular "memory sticks"; - just do it, or suffer in terms of a fried or inaccessible HD ............ !!!

David

scml · Post by **scml** » Fri Aug 18, 2006 4:27 pm

Just a thought, does anyone on TS backup their files online??
And if so, can anyone recommend a good site as that would be a great way to have files safe and sound, and easy to access.
I was just reading an article that AOL is going to start doing this, with free online storage space, but I am not an AOL user.

pinkshoes · Post by **pinkshoes** » Fri Aug 18, 2006 5:44 pm

I've noticed when searching for various Maxtor One Touch thingy's, there is a One Touch I, One Touch II and One Touch III - any clues as to what the difference would be?

Thank you
Pinkshoes

Post by **emanday** » Fri Aug 18, 2006 6:51 pm

Hi Sandy,

I use esnips.com. It is totally free and you have the ability to have both private and public folders within your 1GB space.

I've been using it to pass on piccies to friends and family and have got a long way to go to come near filling it up but, now you have brought it up, it'd be an ideal repository for an off-site archive.

fmackay · Post by **fmackay** » Fri Aug 18, 2006 8:41 pm

These posts have scared the living daylights out of me as I've never backed up any of my files(that I'm aware of)

My knowledge of computers is virtualy zero so would be grateful of a step by step fools version of what to do. I use Family Tree Maker for my tree
Fiona

DavidWW · Post by **DavidWW** » Sat Aug 19, 2006 7:16 am

fmackay wrote:These posts have scared the living daylights out of me as I've never backed up any of my files(that I'm aware of) My knowledge of computers is virtualy zero so would be grateful of a step by step fools version of what to do. I use Family Tree Maker for my tree
Fiona

Fiona

Never

(Gulp).

Does your computer have a CD drive?

If yes, then go and buy some blank CDs, - explain to the store what you want to do.

Easiest next step is then to get a more knowledgable friend to show you how to use Windows Explorer and how to copy data files from your computer's hard disk to a CD ..............

David