Faced
problems with your hard disk suddenly crashing, and having to see all the
precious data on your hard disk disappearing before your eyes? Taking backups
on a regular basis helps in preserving and recovering data during a crash.
There are different methods of backing up data. The most common ones are
1.
Burning to a CD or a ZIP cartridge
2.
Backing up to a storage station
3.
Using Microsoft Backup to backup to another hard disk or another partition
Let’s
take a look at all these methods one by one
Burning
to a CD or a Zip cartridge
To
burn to a CD or a Zip cartridge, you need to have a CD-writer or a ZIP drive
attached. Both CD-writers and Zip drives come in ether parallel port, USB or
SCSI variants. Here, we will show you how to attach a parallel port CD-writer
or Zip cartridge.
Identify
the parallel port slot on the back panel (the parallel port will have 25-pin
slot in it). Connect the parallel port cable from the Zip drive to the slot.
Connect the Zip drive power adaptor.
Restart
your computer, Windows will automatically detect your Zip drive and assign it
a drive letter.
Insert
the Zip cartridge. Copying files is quite simple. Just drag and drop the files
you want backed up to the drive letter
For
the CD-writer, follow a similar procedure to connect the CD-writer to the
parallel port. You may have to load the drivers for the CD if Windows
doesn’t automatically detect.
Your
CD-writer will normally come with a CD-burning software such as Easy CD or
Direct CD. Just start the program, select the files you want backed up and
then start the burning process
Backing
up with MS Backup
While
using a CD-writer or Zip drive allows you to back up files and folders that
you select, it doesn’t have the flexibility of only backing up files that
are modified or created after certain date. That’s where specialised
software such as Microsoft Backup (that comes with your Windows installation
helps).
If
you have installed Microsoft Backup it should be in Start > Program Files
> Accessories > System Tools menu, else go to Control Panel >
Add/Remove Programs, and click on the Windows setup tab and install Microsoft
Backup from the Accessories option. (You will need the Windows 98 CD)
Start
MS Backup. The software will automatically first check whether you have a
storage device such as a Tape drive installed. The backup options are wizard
driven, and you are prompted to select the folders that you want backed up.
You can give a name for the backup and also specify whether you want all the
files in the folder backed up or only new files or those that have been
modified. Select your destination location (preferably another hard disk or
partition). You files are now automatically backed up. Using the Scheduler
function, you can even schedule backups if you like.
For
high-volume backups in corporate offices, you do have storage stations that
allow you to back up the data files on your workstation. The storage station
appears like any other network drive. Just click on Network Neighbourhood and
browse to the storage station. Browse the folders and copy the files to your
specified folder.
There
are quite a number of options for backing up, and what we showed is just the
tip of the iceberg, but should work well for you. While you are backing up, a
few tips should come in handy:
Also,
back up any important stuff that you may have placed on the desktop.