[tanni7]

Simply put, I need some direction on how to back up my music files from My Music, pictures from My Pictures, as well as emails from Outlook Express. I am working with Windows XP and have been told that I need to back up my information in case there is a time when my computer should crash, and I lose everything. I don't even know what I need to do this....I have both floppy disc and CD-R discs. I hope these will work. Sounds like this should be an easy question to answer due to the fact that it's probably so standard for a lot of people, however, I am still in the learning process of how the basics work and would love some guidance so I don't mess anything up. Thanks in advance!

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Hi and welcome to Geeks to Go. There is a good guide on backing up data, explains various options etc at
http://forums.pcper....isplay.php?f=40 See the sticky post at the top of the forum.

[austin_o]

Hi and welcome to Geeks to Go. There is a good guide on backing up data, explains various options etc at
http://forums.pcper....isplay.php?f=40 See the sticky post at the top of the forum.

[tanni7]

Thank you for the suggestion to the website explaining different options. After reading it through, I realize that I need some very basic pointers. Such as: I am interested in backing up my data on a CD and I don't even have a clue as to which tab I would go to first. I need someone to basically just tell me step by step what procedure to follow without having to buy a program at the store to do it for me. All I want to do is to go to a certain "tab", click on something, (etc, etc.) and burn it onto a CD. Is that possible? I would appreciate any further help if you could provide it for me. Thanks!!

[SRX660]

Sometimes i think i am quite odd in the way i backup my files. I backup everything i want to save from my computer to cd's or dvd's. I usually save music files to dvd's simply because i have 45 gigs (9000 songs) and it's growing all the time. All other data are saved to cd's. I keep everything in my my documents folder under various named folders. The folder name is relevent to the data in it. I usually use a rewritable cd as i like to add new data to a cd until its full. I then will copy the dats to a folder on the computer and burn a regular data cd. I can then reformat the rewritable cd and reuse it for new data. The only programs i backup are downloaded ones. I save the original download to add into a downloads folder until i have enough to burn a cd's I can then delete all the original files in the downloads folder and go looking for more. I don't try saving programs i bought since i have the original cd's. I use nero to burn everything and nero is like being in explorer in windows. I burn whole folders not just the files in that folder.

Heres a tutorial on using nero.

http://asp2.wlv.ac.u...p_with_nero.asp

and

http://www.wellesley...Computing/Nero/

SRX660

[tanni7]

Thank you very much SRX660! Those instructions were helpful and easy to follow too. I know that you back up your music to DVD, but is it possible to put it CD-R? I have 1665 MB of music and it obviously won't go on 1 CD-R, so how do I break it up without actually picking each song individually? Also, I want to save my emails from Outlook Express and have no idea how to do that either. I hope you can shed some light on this for me.

[SRX660]

My music files are saved to folders named for each artist. If you would split your songs up by artist name, you could put the music on 3 cd's. You just would not be reaching the maximum capacity of each cd. Each cd holds from 650MB to 700MB of data depending on what cd's you buy. It doesnt matter where you split up your songs if you keep them together by the artists name.

For years i have been making text files of important emails. I save the text files to a folder i name (hold your breath)email in the my documents folder. I just backup these files like normal data files. There is a program i have used called DBX extract when i need to save a lot of emails.

http://www.updatexp.com/tip23.html

SRX660

[SRX660]

My music files are saved to folders named for each artist. If you would split your songs up by artist name, you could put the music on 3 cd's. You just would not be reaching the maximum capacity of each cd. Each cd holds from 650MB to 700MB of data depending on what cd's you buy. It doesnt matter where you split up your songs if you keep them together by the artists name.

For years i have been making text files of important emails. I save the text files to a folder i name (hold your breath)email in the my documents folder. I just backup these files like normal data files. There is a program i have used called DBX extract when i need to save a lot of emails.

http://www.updatexp.com/tip23.html

SRX660

[tanni7]

Thank you so much for taking the time to explain things to me and for guiding me through this process. I have found it very helpful and I appreciate it! If I have any further questions, I will post them at another time, but for now, I have gotten the information I was seeking. Thanks again SRX660!