Back Up Your Research!

[farmeroman]

This all very interesting but lacks the one thing many of us needs. How precisely do we carry out a back up?
My particular problem is getting urgent. having changed broadband provider I now find that the previous supplier intends to close down the email address. I therefore need to copy many emails with their attachments quickly to avoid losing many hours research covering a long time period.

For files and folders:

1) Buy a flash drive (aka a memory stick, USB pen, etc.) from Amazon, PCWorld, Tesco, etc. 16GB should be plenty, but get a larger one if you have thousands of photos.

2) Insert the drive into a spare USB port on your computer; they will normally be at the side or back of a laptop or front or back of a desktop.

3) Open a Windows Explorer (not Internet Explorer) window (I'm assuming you know how to do this).

4) Find the location where you important files are saved (probably My Documents) in the left hand pane and left click on it to show the contents in the right hand pane.

5) Position the mouse pointer on a folder to copy (e.g. Family Tree) and then right click and, while holding the mouse button down, drag the mouse across and release it on top of the USB drive in the left hand pane. Release the mouse and select Copy Here (not Move Here!).

Emails are a whole different issue I'm afraid; I suggest that you save each individual attachment to a folder in your family tree folder and back up from there. Alternatively, set up a Gmail email address and forward each email to it.

[Mayfly663]

I learnt my lesson 2 yrs ago when I lost the HDD on a 7mth old laptop. Since then I always use an USB flash drive and I back that up to another external HDD. Please I did this last week as my USB went kaput this morning.

[farmeroman]

I learnt my lesson 2 yrs ago when I lost the HDD on a 7mth old laptop. Since then I always use an USB flash drive and I back that up to another external HDD. Please I did this last week as my USB went kaput this morning.

Yes, it can happen after 1 day, 1 month, 1 year or 10 years. The only thing that is certain is that a hard drive WILL pack up one day, taking all of your data with it. And as you discovered, a USB flash drive can go kaput too...

[alpinecottage]

This is a typical fairly naive question that people who are self taught computer users ask, but here goes;  up until now, I've saved the photos on my computer onto one memory stick and the documents onto another.  Every so often, I update the two memory sticks, so if I lose any data, the loss will be minimal.  I decided (after a bit of a laptop hissy fit scare recently) to buy an expansion port and invested in a Seagate 1TB portable drive.  I plugged it in and dragged and dropped the documents folder and photos folder to it.  I also set up a Windows automatic update facility, though as I haven't created any new files, I haven't tested if that will work. 
I was under the impression that I could safeguard my emails and the Windows 10 operating system too, so if my laptop decided not to work, I could clear everything off it or buy a new hard drive, then reinstall everything - am I right in thinking that isn't possible?

[RJ_Paton]

No, it is possible.
You need to use the appropriate software to create an image of your drive and of course the necessary space to do this
Acronis trueinage  back up software is excellent
https://www.acronis.com/en-gb/lp/personal/sem?gclid=EAIaIQobChMItPO-v-6k5wIVSbTtCh3kGQ71EAAYASAAEgLv3PD_BwE

Another is Ashampoo Backup 2020
https://www.ashampoo.com/en/usd/pde/1459/security-software/backup-2020

[Guy Etchells]

This is a typical fairly naive question that people who are self taught computer users ask, but here goes;  up until now, I've saved the photos on my computer onto one memory stick and the documents onto another.  Every so often, I update the two memory sticks, so if I lose any data, the loss will be minimal.  I decided (after a bit of a laptop hissy fit scare recently) to buy an expansion port and invested in a Seagate 1TB portable drive.  I plugged it in and dragged and dropped the documents folder and photos folder to it.  I also set up a Windows automatic update facility, though as I haven't created any new files, I haven't tested if that will work. 
I was under the impression that I could safeguard my emails and the Windows 10 operating system too, so if my laptop decided not to work, I could clear everything off it or buy a new hard drive, then reinstall everything - am I right in thinking that isn't possible?

I would suggest unplugging your external hard drive from your computer unless you need to access the back-ups.
It is not uncommon for a computer fault to corrupt the external drive file index making the stored files useless.

In addition do not rely on any back up program to back up files, photos, databases etc. safely. I suggest dragging and dropping those files to your backup drive manually, that way they can be viewed in their original format (even on a different computer) after back up and checked that they work.

Cheers
Guy

[alpinecottage]

The easy reply first;  Guy, by pure fluke, I have done the drag and drop procedure and I do intend to keep the external hard drive disconnected from the computer except when I'm using it to back something up - mainly because the laptop is usually on the dining table and has to be moved at meal times 

Thanks Falkryn for those two recommendations - I will look into those. 

As regards the emails, I do have Thunderbird as a backup, as well as the email server's site and I really ought to tackle the 800 or so emails which I haven't got round to fully acting upon or completely "putting to bed"!!

[confusion]

A backup is only as good as your backup strategy.

Hard Drive's and USB thumb drive's do not have an infinite life.
They can fail unexpectedely for a number of reasons.

One of the most common failures is power outages or hastily 'powering down'
the device before the read/write cycles have been completed.
Thus 'corrupting' the said backup files and the dive in question.

For good housekeeping always leave about 30 seconds after the
backup has finished before removing/powering down the device.

Always follow the correct protocol in 'removing' the HD/USB
drive for your operating system.

Jim