Some Terminology:
Backup: A backup is a copy of a document you create and store on your computer. Documents are the direct result of your work (e.g., Word files, Excel spreadsheets, etc.). Keeping recent copies of your documents prevents having to recreate them
at some later date.
Restore: Storing copies of your documents allows you to put them back on the computer in case the originals are lost in computer failure or file corruption. University IT will restore all of the common applications to your computer, but they will not have copies of the documents you created.
Backup Media: You can use a variety of devides for your backup media: a thumbdrive is the easiest way to manage and transport your data; you can also burn your data to a CD or DVD.
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Instructions:
What Files Should I Back Up?
More recent versions of Office attempt to store newly created files in the "My Documents" folder which should be visible on your desktop. It is also a good practice to store files created in non-standard programs within the "My Documents" folder as well.
Simple Backup
Right-click and then drag the "My Documents" folder to your backup media. A dialog will pop up asking if you want to copy or move the folder to the new drive. Choose "copy".
The system will then copy the contents of "My Documents" to the backup media.
File Storage
If the files you want to backup are stored in multiple locations on your computer, you have a couple of choices.
First, you could copy each file to your thumbdrive individually. This is effective if you have one or two files to back up.
Second, you could organize the files you want to regularly back up so that they are all stored in one folder (e.g., "My Documents"). This can be tedious but possibly well worth the effort.
Backup Styles
There are two methods of keeping backups that might be worth considering here.
The first method would be to keep only the most current copy of any of your documents. In this case, you would overwrite existing copies with the current files.
The second method is to keep a sequence of backups. In this case, once you have created a backup of your "My Documents" folder on the thumbdrive, go back and rename that folder "My Documents yyyy-month-day, where "yyyy-month-day" represents the date you made the backup. This method can be useful in cases where you might need to see a previous version of your work.
Restoring Data
Restoring data is as easy as dragging a file to your computer's hard drive.
Insert your backup medium and choose to view the files stored on it. Select one or more individual files and drag them to where you want them to be stored. If you are recovering from a serious failure, you might want to drag the entire "My Documents" folder from the thumbdrive.
Remember, the data that you are able to restore after a disaster is only as good as the timeliness of the data you saved. |
