Backing up to an External Hard Drive

[Calverley Lad]

On my desktop machine I have 2 DVD writers, simple enough to do a copy of external drive etc.
 (4.7Gb of data maximum per disc)
Pass to a friend for safety (mum has a security safe for must have access - lives local)
 Brian

[mrs griff]

Thanks Brian,

I have that option on my desktop so will give it a go

Mrs Griff

[Calverley Lad]

Something to be consider by all!
My youngest brother rang me in a panic.
His operating system had managed to be corrupt.
10 years worth of everthing photos/letters/banking/etc.
NO BACKUPS EXIST
So I am preparing to remove his hard drive and put it into a caddy on my system.
Hoping to transfer all his information onto a spare hard drive, reformat his drive then after sorting out his operating system, put his personal info back.
Be warned, even the lucky can get unlucky!
 Brian

[GrahamSimons]

It's important to think about adverse events other than drive failure.

If you are burgled, it's likely your PC and your external hard drive will be stolen. If you have a fire or a flood then both devices will be damaged. Insurance will replace your PC and hard drive, but can't replace your data.

So make sure that some back-up is off-site - for example Dropbox, Skydrive, BT Digital Vault, Flickr, whatever, or burned on to DVD and left at another address, or...... As stated earlier in this thread, don't rely 100% on the Cloud either as the company may fail and then your data evaporates!

[Nick29]

Your best bet is to burn multiple backups on to DVD's and leave them in secure places (at work, parents or siblings houses, your accountant, your best friend, etc).