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Mr Magoo
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Mr Magoo is offline
London
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31-08-2019, 09:38 AM
1

An appeal for help

I am appealing to those who have a better PC knowledge than I have. My problem is that I need to do a backup before the end of the week. My PC uses Windows 10 and I understand that this platform supports straightforward backup to an external drive. I cannot begin to understand what I need to do to achieve this.

Would some kind person post an idiot proof step by step set of instructions? Assuming that is possible, of course.
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OldGreyFox
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OldGreyFox is offline
South Yorkshire
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31-08-2019, 10:04 AM
2

Re: An appeal for help

Originally Posted by Mr Magoo ->
I am appealing to those who have a better PC knowledge than I have. My problem is that I need to do a backup before the end of the week. My PC uses Windows 10 and I understand that this platform supports straightforward backup to an external drive. I cannot begin to understand what I need to do to achieve this.

Would some kind person post an idiot proof step by step set of instructions? Assuming that is possible, of course.
I just bung all of my stuff on several memory sticks Mr Magoo, and then keep them up-to-date at the end of every month.
Donkeyman
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31-08-2019, 10:04 AM
3

Re: An appeal for help

Originally Posted by Mr Magoo ->
I am appealing to those who have a better PC knowledge than I have. My problem is that I need to do a backup before the end of the week. My PC uses Windows 10 and I understand that this platform supports straightforward backup to an external drive. I cannot begin to understand what I need to do to achieve this.

Would some kind person post an idiot proof step by step set of instructions? Assuming that is possible, of course.
Like yourself MM, I get lost in all the jargon and the new
language used in the so called tech community!
So all l can advise is to take your stuff to the local computer
shop in your town! good luck with byour problem!

Regards Donkeyman!
keezoy
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31-08-2019, 10:05 AM
4

Re: An appeal for help

I can tell you what I do. There's a few ways to do it. Do you want to put everything that's stored on your hard drive to an external one? Is that what you mean by backup? First you have to find out how much memory your stuff will take up then get an external drive big enough to hold it.
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Meg
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31-08-2019, 10:12 AM
5

Re: An appeal for help

Hi Mr Magoo like other members I store the content of my laptop on a tiny external hard drive , I prefer to do this than risk messing around on my computer. It has the added benefit that if my laptop breaks I don't lose everything.
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JBR
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31-08-2019, 10:33 AM
6

Re: An appeal for help

Mr Magoo, I don't know how much data you have and want to store externally, but I suspect they may contain many pictures!

I can tell you what I do, routinely, to back up all my work.

Firstly, I'd download Dropbox and Microsoft's One Drive. Both are free! Every time I create or change a file, I save it to both of those storage sites (I keep links on my desktop). You can do this by clicking on the file and 'saving to' Dropbox or One Drive. That takes only a couple of extra mouse clicks in addition to the usual 'save' command in the programme itself. Incidentally, you don't really need BOTH of those, but I'm a 'belt and braces' man.

The minor drawback is that both of those two online sites are limited in the amount you can keep on them, so I also have two small external hard drives (again, one would be enough, but 'belt and braces' again!). Each is much larger than the online storage sites - 500Gb and 1Tb. They connect quite simply by plugging into a USB port and the computer should recognise them instantly.

What I do periodically, perhaps once a month (but that will depend on how much you save to the online storage sites), I download everything on the computer to both of them using the File History software built in to Windows 10 (it's in Control Panel). I does everything itself really and is easy to use. Having done that, I empty out One Drive and Dropbox ready to receive every new file I create or files that I change.

I've been doing this for years now.

The online storage sites are very quick to save individual files (almost instantaneous); updating everything to the external hard drives takes a lot longer, up to an hour in my case, but the other option is just to copy everything listed in your Dropbox or One Drive folder directly to the hard drive(s), which is much quicker.

I've written a lot (!), but I hope this is of help. If I've said anything you don't understand, please ask and I'll do my best to explain further.
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Mr Magoo
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31-08-2019, 11:45 AM
7

Re: An appeal for help

I want to thank people for their help.

I have gone for the dropbox option and I hope that I have done the right thing.

Thanks again.
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JBR
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31-08-2019, 12:32 PM
8

Re: An appeal for help

Originally Posted by Mr Magoo ->
I want to thank people for their help.

I have gone for the dropbox option and I hope that I have done the right thing.

Thanks again.
Very wise, but as I said, when it becomes full you'll have to think about what to do next.

Actually, I believe you can pay for additional storage.
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Judd
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31-08-2019, 02:12 PM
9

Re: An appeal for help

As with a few posters on here, I religiously back up my files to an external hard drive (they're fairly cheap these days) and once a month, I do a disk `image` of my C: drive and store that image on an external drive just in case of drive failure. It beats having to re-install everything from scratch.

A few files and photos are also stored on my Google Drive (15Gb free storage) and can be accessed from all of my devices, PC, tablet, phone etc.

Everyone should make an effort to save/back-up their important files and photos.
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JBR
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JBR is offline
Cheshire, UK
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31-08-2019, 02:52 PM
10

Re: An appeal for help

Originally Posted by Judd ->
As with a few posters on here, I religiously back up my files to an external hard drive (they're fairly cheap these days) and once a month, I do a disk `image` of my C: drive and store that image on an external drive just in case of drive failure. It beats having to re-install everything from scratch.

A few files and photos are also stored on my Google Drive (15Gb free storage) and can be accessed from all of my devices, PC, tablet, phone etc.

Everyone should make an effort to save/back-up their important files and photos.
Oh, I've only done one disc image of my hard drive, and that was some time ago. It is recommended to do them more often?
 
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