Backing Up Your Data

Andrew Brooke - Email: abrooke@primus.ca

Updated Feb. 18, 2007

Introduction

Backing up your data (or data files) is the most important and critical task that all computer users must do. Yet strangely, most people do not take the time to do it. This is probably because they don't know how to. Many of the steps involved are not obvious, and it takes patience, skill and discipline to properly back up all your data.

Imagine if you lost all your information - your documents, your emails, your email address book, and all the websites that you have bookmarked. It can and does happen every day. Computer hard drives fail. Computers get damaged. Computers, especially laptops, can be lost or stolen.

I have known several people who have lost all their data, with no backup. It is heartbreaking. Do not join this sorry group! Follow the instructions here every day, and you will be safe.

    Determine What You Will Use To Store Your Backup Files

    Before you actually begin backing up your file, you need to figure out what exactly you are going to back them up onto. Although you could, in theory, simple copy you files to another location on your hard drive, this is a terrible and extremely dangerous solution. If you hard drive fails, or your computer is lost, damaged or stolen, having extra copies on you hard drive will be of no value. You must use an external device to the copy your files on to. Ideally, you should have more than one of these. Keep one at home and another at a different location, for example, you workplace. That way, if anything happens to your home, you will be covered.

    The easiest and most popular device for backing up are USB memory keys. These are small, plastic or metal devices that plug into the USB port on your computer. Get the largest drive that you can afford. You may need 1, 2, 4 or more GB to properly back up all your data.

    Another device you can use is a memory card reader along with a compatible memory card. Memory cards are typically cheaper than comparable USB keys and are used in digital cameras and other devices.

    Windows XP is fairly good about recognizing either of these devices when you plug them in. The device will appear as another drive in Windows Explorer, and is assigned its own driver letter.

  1. Back Up Your Documents

    2. The easiest and probably most important thing to back up are your documents. These are all located in your My Documents folder. Simply copy and paste all the files and folders in your My Documents folder to a folder on your external device.

  2. Display Hidden Folders and Files and Create A Backup Folder

    3. For some of the remaining procedures, you'll need to temporarily change a setting in Windows that will allow you to see hidden files and folders.
    1. Open Windows Explorer.
    2. Click Tools > Folder Options > View and select Show Hidden files and folders.

    You should also create a folder on your desktop - I suggest you call this folder Backup. You'll be needing this later.

  3. Back Up Your Bookmarks

    4. Your bookmarks (called "Favorites" in Internet Explorer) are all the websites that you have save for viewing later. To back these up:

    For Internet Explorer:
    Copy and paste the entire Favourites folder located in:
    C:\Documents and Settings\[your user name]\Favourites
    to your external device.

    For Mozilla Firefox:

    1. In Windows Explorer, locate the following folder:
      C:\Documents and Settings\[your user name]\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\
    2. Right-click this folder (Firefox) and select to Create a shortcut.
    3. Move this shortcut into the Backup folder on your desktop.
    4. Using the Firefox shortcut you created, copy and paste all the files and folders from your Firefox folder to a folder on your external device.

  4. Back Up Your Email

    5. Backing up your email is by far the most challenging procedure, because your email data may be spread out over several files and folders, and there's a few one-time steps required to set it up correctly.

    Outlook

    All Outlook data (emails and addresses) are stored in one .pst file, which is usually located at:

    C:\Documents and Settings\[your user name]\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook\*.pst

    If you're not sure where you .pst file is, search for *.pst search and make a note of the location. The filename is usually outlook.pst, but may vary on your system.

    To back up your Outlook data:

    1. Create a shortcut to the Outlook folder that contains your .pst file, then move this shortcut to the Backup folder on your desktop. (Make sure you've followed step B above otherwise you won't see the Application Data subfolder.)
    2. Close Outlook.

      Note: There is a defect with Outlook that even after you close it, it still runs in the background. This locks the .pst file and therefore prevents you from being able to copy the .pst file. Complete the remaing steps to stop Outlook completely:

    3. Press Ctr-Alt-Delete to display the Windows Task Manager.
    4. Click the Processes tab.
    5. Click the Image Name column title to sort it alphabetically.
    6. Click the OUTLOOK.EXE image name to highlight it.
    7. Click End Process.
    8. Click Yes when the warning appears.
    9. Now, using the Outlook shortcut, copy and paste the *.pst file on to a folder on your external device.

    Outlook Express

    There's two steps involved in backup up your Outlook Express: backing up you address book and backing up your actual emails.

    1. Backing Up Your Outlook Express Address Book

    Your Outlook Express addresses are stored in a .WAB (Windows Address Book) file. This file is usually located in:

    C:\Documents and Settings\[your user name]\Application Data\Microsoft\Address Book\[your user name].wab file.

    For example, if your name is John, then the file would be something like:

    C:\Documents and Settings\John\Application Data\Microsoft\Address Book\John.wab

    If you're not sure where you .WAB file is, search for *.wab and make a note of the location.

    To back up your WAB file:

    1. Create a shortcut to the Address Book folder that contains your .WAB file, then move this shortcut to the Backup folder on your desktop. (Make sure you've followed step B above otherwise you won't see the Application Data subfolder.)
    2. Using the Address Book shortcut, copy and paste your .wab file to a folder on your external device.

    2. Backing Up Your Outlook Express Emails

    Your Outlook Express emails are stored in a set of .DBX files. These are usually located in:

    C:\Documents and Settings\[your user name]\Application Data\Identities\[randomly named folder]\

    If you're not sure where your .DBX files are, search for Inbox.dbx and make a note of the location. To back up your Outlook Express Emails:

    1. Create a shortcut to the folder containing your .DBX files, then move this shortcut to the Backup folder on your desktop. (Make sure you've followed step B above otherwise you won't see the Application Data subfolder.)
    2. Rename this shortcut to Emails.
    3. Using the Emails shortcut, open the folder contain your .DBX files and copy and paste the all the files and folders to a folder on your external device.

    Mozilla Thunderbird

    All Mozilla Thunderbird emails and address are located in:

    C:\Documents and Settings\[your user name]\Application Data\Thunderbird\

    To back up your Mozilla Thunderbird data:

    1. Create a shortcut to the Thunderbird folder, then move this shortcut to the Backup folder on your desktop. (Make sure you've followed step B above otherwise you won't see the Application Data subfolder.)
    2. Using the Thunderbird shortcut, copy and paste your Thunderbird folder to your external device.

Other Backup Considerations

If you follow the above procedures, you are basically copying and pasting all of your files from you hard drive to an external disk. You have two options when you do this:
    Method 1: Only current files backed up: Erase all the backup files on your external drive before copying over a new set of files.

    Method 2: All files backed up: Keep all the backup files on your external drive before copying over a new set of files. Select to replace the existing files when prompted.

With the first method, your backup will contain all your current files and will not have any files that you may have deleted since the last backup. This ensures your backup will not grow too large and will only contain current files. This is convenient if you ever have to restore these files, because you won't have any files that you previously deleted from your computer.

With the second method, your backup will have all your current files, plus any additional files that you deleted from your computer since the last backup. This is handy if you accidentally deleted a file from your computer and now need to restore it. The downside is that it can cause your backup files to grow quite large.

You'll have to decide which method is best for you. If you want to keep your backup as small as possible, and don't think you'd ever need to recover a deleted file, use the first method. If you have lots of space on your backup drive and don't mind the clutter of deleted files, use the second method.

In addition, you can set up a Windows briefcase to synchronize the files on your computer with your backup drive, but this is a rather complication procedure and is therefore for advanced users only.