Back Up Your Computers

[briwayjones]

Yea, System Restore is a joke. I disable it on my computers. I find with Windows, any problems are only fully solved with a format/re-install. With Windows I would normally re-install every 6-8 months because of slow downs, issues. I'm still going strong on my factory installed 10.5 for 9 months with no issues.

Actually I think system restore is the best feature they've put in Windows in a long time. It has saved my butt a number of times.

 

[Brandons]

Service pack 3 I am afraid of.. seen it stop many machines from booting, and tired of wasting time going into safe mode and uninstalling it..

Another handy and easy utility for backing up is that unstoppable copier program, doesn't stop for errors and can recover some data off bad sectors in rare occasions.

I cant believe how many people I get at work with their busted a** computers, finding out they haven't backed up anything and need me to do it, sure no problem, $80 a DVD should teach you. Always back up if you have important files, and I'm glad to hear many of you do!

 

[Blee1099]

For those considerring off-site backup, you might wanna read this and re-consider.

http://www.networkworld.com/news/2008/081108-linkup-failure.html?hpg1=bn

http://www.networkworld.com/news/2008/072108-amazon-outages.html?ap1=rcb

 

[Pensa]

For those considerring off-site backup, you might wanna read this and re-consider.

Personally I would never put the contents of my computer on line, I just don't trust the security of on line sites that much. Not that I have any government secrets or anything or any secrets for that matter. My computer would be very dull reading for anyone who cracked into it.LOL

I use a backup hard drive, in the event of a major crash I can just reformat the primary drive and clone the backup drive to it.

I do not leave the backup drive connected, it cannot be corrupted by a virus or any other method hackers might try or windows might create.

 

[BrooklynBay]

My hard drive was giving me a lot of problems for about 2 weeks, then the system wouldn't start. The card connected to the hard drive went, and at the same time messed up the files of my back up drive which is also an internal drive. I have an identical Maxtor drive which I swapped the controller card from. Windows does not show either drive when I click onto My Computer, but shows that they exist when I go to Control Panel, System then Device Manager. I have a Linux Lindows live disk which allows me to see the contents of both drives, but does not allow me to copy its contents from one internal drive to another. It allows me to copy from an internal drive to an external drive, but only recognizes one external drive at a time. It doesn't allow me to copy any large files which are over 2GB. I have some DVD ISO images which are a few GB, but it stops copying at 2GB. BTW, I clicked onto the link for SP3. I get an error message if I try to download it.

 

[Pensa]

Controller card? I haven't used one of them in many a year. Are you running SATA drives in a computer that doesn't have Motherboard connections for SATA drives?

 

[BrooklynBay]

The card is built onto the back of the IDE hard drive.

 

[Pensa]

OK, you are talking about the circuitry built into the hard drive. When you said card I thought of a separate card, you can get those to run SATA drives on a motherboard without SATA connections.

The problem you are having is the reason I keep my backup drive disconnected unless I need it.

Have you checked your CMOS to make sure something hasn't been changed there? It sounds like since windows will find the drives that it could be a problem in CMOS.

Have you tried a different cable? Those sometimes go bad, but I don't know why windows would see the drives and the computer wouldn't if that was the cause.

 

[BrooklynBay]

I plugged another drive into the computer, and I'm using it now. Windows can't see it when I connect it to an external IDE to USB either, but Linux Lindows 4.5 could. This can't be related to a bad setting on the computer. Another thing which I've noticed is that in the Device Manager, the part where it says device usage is shaded.

 

[Shen2187]

I bought a new copy of windows with SP3. I can tell you that it is THE WORST version of XP that has come out since it's launch. (still not quite as bad as vista though) I suggest you do not update to SP3. The things it does fix are very minor when compared to the MAJOR problems that it creates.

 

[MustangP51]

I bought a new copy of windows with SP3. I can tell you that it is THE WORST version of XP that has come out since it's launch. (still not quite as bad as vista though) I suggest you do not update to SP3. The things it does fix are very minor when compared to the MAJOR problems that it creates.

Why do you say its the worst version yet? Its the same exact script as the original release back in 2001. The only major changes to it were between SP1 and SP2 to change the firewall. SP3 really just combines all the automatic updates since SP2 into one installer. Other than that it just updates the operating system for better networking and also allow better networking with other Windows Vista systems.

 

[BrooklynBay]

My Dell motherboard's USB didn't work until I installed SP2. It has updates which the computer needs. Dell didn't even have the USB drivers I needed on their website. It's a good thing that it was part of SP2.

 

[Pensa]

You might be able to get a little more information by going to Start/Accessories/System Tools/ System Information. I have found that to be more helpful at times.

You should get a list of trouble devices there at least.

 

[Willard]

My Dell motherboard's USB didn't work until I installed SP2. It has updates which the computer needs. Dell didn't even have the USB drivers I needed on their website. It's a good thing that it was part of SP2.

But this is about SP3...anyways SP2 was a good thing, a good update. But SP3 just went to far and screwed up. They really didn't need another service pack. They could just release all needed drivers and such to the public.

 

[BrooklynBay]

This thread might help people decide which hard drive to buy: http://www.explorerforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=221926

 

[SoBeLover]

Looks like I'm going to have to update my desktop, even though I don't use it as much anymore. It's still running SP2 and my daughter who uses it to play World of Warcraft would just let it auto update instead of downloading it then updating it

As far as backing up stuff, the only things I back up are music , picture and video files and I do have an external drive for that purpose, all of the games I have are on both of my computers and I have the disks for them, my external drive is able to run on both the desktop and my laptop so no problems there

My work computer is running SP3 and I've had no problems with it since I downloaded it.

 

[mattadams]

I have been using mozy for several months now and am pretty happy with it. Something like $4 month and it all takes place automatically. I thought of doing an external hard drive, etc. but decided I'd prefer it be totally off-site.
For a while I was backing up all my images to DVD's and putting them in my safe, but that was constant updating, etc. I then started putting them out on my web server, but the 15+ gigs of images was causing my regular website backups to choke and take up too much space.
The idea of a second hard drive is good but again it means a lot of syncronizations, needing to keep something off site, etc. so I liked the idea of automatic online backups.

As far as security, I'm pretty sure that if someone really wants in to my stuff, they can get into it, whether I back it up online, or just leave it on my computer, no matter how many firewalls or intrusion programs I install, theres always someone smarter then the programs.

 

[Flounder]

Wow--this grew since I posted it.

I placed an order, though am still awaiting arrival, of a Western Digital My Book Studio Edition II. It's a 2TB backup, but I am going to use it to create a mirrored backup on each 1TB HD. Despite having a MBP now, I still feel insecure as to the reliability of any HD.

 

[mattadams]

I remember the first time I saw a terabyte of hard drive space. It took up almost an entire rack and consisted of probably 60 seperate hard drives that were allw orking in unison. It was for a bank and I believe cost them a LOT of money. Sad part is, that was only about 4-5 years ago and was considered top of the line. Funny how things change.

 

[BrooklynBay]

The old systems had big wheels with a tape drive. They were about the size of a car tire or like the movie projector film wheels. Punch cards were also popular. If anybody remembers the original series of Star Trek, Kirk had floppy disks which looked like the old style 8 inch which was later reduced to the 5 1/4". It had the soft plastic cover unlike the hard 3 1/2" cover. This show had it way before they had this technology just like the flip phone (Kirk's communicator).