Learn to backup your important files on a PC


There are many ways you can keep your computer files like photos, music and documents safe from virus infections, robbers, hackers, disasters, and hardware failure. It is as simple as copying and pasting your files to a USB flash drive for smaller files, USB hard drive for bigger files, or burning them to CD-R and DVD-R disks to share files with people.

If you have Windows 7 or Vista, you can set your computer to automatically backup your files to another hard drive like a USB Hard Drive by typing in backup and restore in the Windows 7 startmenu textbox, and pressing enter. Press the Set up Backup link, and follow the steps to seting up Windows Backup. Never backup files to the same hard drive since if the hard drive breaks your files may be gone forever.

It is best to backup your computer to an external hard drive or another computer hard drive if you have a home network at home.

Windows XP and above also has a built-in CD burning program for backing up files, but it isn't very user friendly. If you want a more user friendly CD burning program, I recommend Nero or Roxio since they both are pretty good in my experience. There are also free CD burning programs like CDBurnerXP, and DeepBurner which also work pretty good at burning CDs, but they are not as feature rich as paid alternatives.

It is a good idea to backup your most important files like family photos, job documents, diplomas, certificates, and home movies to online storage services like Dropbox.com, Google Docs, Windows Live SkyDrive, MediaFire, and other services. But, be sure to make sure your accounts are set to private, so no one, but yourself can view your files. The disadvantage of storing files is it can take a long time to upload your files to your online accounts if you have a slow internet connection.

If your internet is too slow, or you have too many files to backup to online storage servers, you can backup your important files to a USB hard drive, and store it in a safety deposit box at your local bank, or at a friends or family house, but make sure your files are encrypted with file encryption software to prevent people from viewing your files. By storing your files away from your house or office, your files will be safe from fire, water damage, and other disasters.