How-to: Essential Windows Backups : Texxors.com

How-to: Essential Windows Backups

March 24, 2007 Posted by Jeff in : How-to, Tips , trackback, Email this post

Backing up windows is always a crapshoot. You’re never quite sure if you’ve got it all. Because of the sheer quantity of data people have - MP3’s, Movies, Software downloads, etc. - it’s almost impossible to back up every drop of data unless you’re using some expensive tape system like DLT. Backing up a 200GB hard drive onto 50 DVD ROMs isn’t really practical. In this article, I am going to attempt to give you some pointers on making this process as painless as possible combined with a checklist of vital files you must backup. And don’t throw away those DVD ROMs yet.

Even though I use mirrored drives on all my machines, I never thought about volatility of magnetic media until I attended a seminar run by a former defense department technical consultant Chuck Missler. He said in the event of a nuclear incident, or even a dirty bomb, the resulting EMF Pulse could erase all magnetic media for hundreds of miles, including tapes and hard disks. Optical media such as CDs and DVD ROMs will not be subject to this effect. Short of a nuclear holocaust, there are other reasons to use DVD media.

I also like to use this kind of backup over ghosting, or a tape, because if I need to, I can go in and grab one specific file easily, without doing some kind of tedious restore operation.

Now, the vital stuff.

I’m going to generalize here by assuming you’re using Microsoft Office and Outlook. If you’re one of those independent types using something else, you’ll probably be able to figure out where your equivalent stuff is.

There are 2 roads you can take here, you can backup your documents and settings directory, or you can backup specific critical folders. I’ll discuss the first option…well, first.

The Easy Way (sort of)

If you take the easy way, just backing up Documents and Settings, You’ll need to clean out some junk first. It will save several gigs of space. Here’s what you do:

Go into internet explorer settings, delete cookies, then delete offline content. I delete the History too, simply from a security standpoint, I don’t want to archive it. Bad links find their way in there.
Go into Start-Programs-Accessories-System Tools, and do a Disk Cleanup. Wait till it’s completed.
Go into C:\Documents and Settings\username\Local Settings\Temp and make sure it’s empty. If there is more than 1 user on your PC, do it for all of them.
In C:\Documents and Settings\username\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files, you’ll see 1 or 2 folders. One will be “Content” and if you use outlook, there will be a second one that looks like “olk215c” or something like that. You can delete the contents of that folder. That’s where some of the outlook stuff goes if you don’t save it to a specific folder. (You might also find some lost documents there)

Now you can burn your documents and settings folder to CDs or DVDs. You might still have to split it up onto several disks. This will depend on how much downloaded music, pictures, and docs you have. Typically I recommend skipping the music during backup, and make a second backup of ONLY your downloaded music.

Getting just the basics:

If you just want to back up only the basics and/or if you are migrating to a new machine, I suggest you just take what is needed. This method is the best way not to archive harmful or useless junk, or transfer harmful or useless junk onto a new machine. (However, you might want to do a cleanup as outlined above):

You will be copying the following folders to a CD or DVD ROM.

All “My Documents”/”Users Documents” folders (located under documents and settings under the different usernames.) Depending on the amount of music, you might need to unselect the music and back up mp3’s to a separate CD/DVD ROM.
C:\Documents and Settings\username\Local Settings\Application
Data\Microsoft\Outlook (has your outlook data: Mail, Calendar, Tasks, etc.)
C:\Documents and Settings\username\Favorites
C:\Documents and Settings\username\Templates (your ms office templates)
C:\Documents and Settings\username\Application Data\Microsoft\Signatures
C:\Documents and Settings\ username \Application Data\Microsoft\Stationery
C:\Documents and Settings\ username \Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook (only if you’re on an exchange server.)
If you are using some other mail program or (gasp) AOL (end gasp), you’ll need to poke around and figure out where that is all stored, so as to not loose your messages. I know little about AOL, never used it, never will, so don’t ask.

Ok, that’s the basics… Hope that helps you out. That should cover your data in the event of a nuclear holocaust, plus my fingers are tired from typing… I’m going to refill my coffee. Please don’t take your backups for granted.