May 5, 2001

This discussion covers my second most favorite issue, backups. Almost every week I end up with a customer who has a hard drive failure or damage from a computer virus and the first thing they ask is "what do I do now?" The answer is simple, do it again.

Unfortunately, data backups are crucial in order to guarantee you don't lose your stuff. Computer geeks can only do so much. Sometimes if it's not backed up, it's gone. Sometimes, if you are willing to pay the "big bucks", there are companies who can recover data from hard drives but you don't want to know how much it costs.

There are dozens of backup programs. I prefer to stick with all the basic stuff since everyone already has it and it doesn't cost more. I like the Microsoft Backup program bundled with Windows. It was improved starting with Windows 98 and can be used with drives other than tape drives. It is easy to use and will span across however many disks it has to in order to save the files. It also compresses the files so they take up less room. As an alternative, and probably the backup program I like the best, click here for a link to EasyBackItUp. This is a shareware program with excellent features.

I would like to discuss what files need to be backed up to guarantee you have everything. Unfortunately, since there are a countless number of programs and they don't usually have any reasonable means for determining where the data files are stored, sometimes you have to do a little detective work to determine what all needs to be backed up. I'm not even going to attempt to discuss a lot of programs but I will cover a few so you will at least get the idea.

First of all, let's talk about how your computer saves data. I know everyone doesn't want to learn a lot of stuff about computers but at least understand your hard drive is like a filing cabinet. It is best to either make a directory (sometimes referred to as folders) for file storage or use the My Documents directory which Windows creates. Think of this directory as being your data filing cabinet. You can make sub-directories below it such as "Word, Excel, Mail, etc". You don't have to have a separate sub-directory for each program but it just keeps things more organized. Under each of those directories make sub-directories for years, letters, or whatever.

You want to make sure each program which can set the default directories, has been set to save files someplace under the My Documents directory. The reason for this is, no matter what backup program you are using, if you have it set up to backup My Documents, then any sub-directories you add later will also be backed up automatically. If you have each program set up its own directories, then each time you install a new program you will have to modify your backup program to back up the data files from the new program. It's just easier to use My Documents then you don't have to change the backup at all.

Now, there are a few files you will want to backup to help the computer guy in case your hard drive goes south and a new one has to be installed (also take the time to do this). In the root of the C Drive, you want to backup the Autoexec.bat, Config.sys, and Msdos.sys files.

In the Windows directory (Windows versions prior to XP), make sure to backup Dosstart.bat, System.dat, User.dat, all the *.ini files, and any *.pwl files. To locate where files are on your hard drive, go to the Start button, go to either Find or Search (depending on which version of Windows you have), type *.ini and in the Look In box type c:\windows and write down all the files it finds and add them to the list in the backup program. Do the same for the *.pwl files.

In the list of directories to back up, select the following sub-directories under the Windows directory (Windows XP stuff is mostly under c:\Documents and Settings\"Username"\ then the applicable sub-directories:

Application Data\Identities - If you are using Outlook Express for your e-mail and I didn't set it up, your e-mail is stored here.

Application Data\Microsoft\Address Book - This is where the Windows address book lives.

Application Data\Microsoft\Proof - Check this directory for a file called Custom.dic. If it's there, check it, if not, do a search and make sure the other directory is backed up. This is the custom dictionary for all the Microsoft Office programs to use for spell checking. It contains all the words you've added over the course of time.

Cookies - This is where your browser cookies are stored. Make sure you un-check the index.dat file since the backup program can not back this file up due to the fact Windows is using it. NOTE: This brings up a good point, always make sure all programs are not running when you do a backup. Open files can't be backed up.

Desktop - This directory contains everything which is displayed on your desktop, ie. icons, files, etc.

Favorites - If you fall within the 70% of the people using Internet Explorer to do your web browsing, you want to backup this directory since all your Favorites you've set are here.

Netscape Users NOTE: If you use Netscape to do your browsing, by default and unless you changed it and put it under My Documents, your contact list and Internet Bookmarks are in a folder C:\Program Files\Netscape\Communicator \Users\"Your Name" - Here again, do a search and put in bookmarks.htm and make sure the Users directory at that location is checked.

Quick Books, Quicken, and a lot of other programs tend to put their files either in the program directories or in sub-directories under the program. I know this has been a lot of information to comprehend but the importance of data backups is up to you. If you can afford to lose all your data and don't care, don't do backups. If your data is important to you and you can figure out how to set it up, DO YOUR BACKUPS. If all this stuff is over your head, spend the few dollars it will cost and have me setup backups for you. It's a one time thing and if you miss just one item, it could be traumatic. Most people seem to miss the mail and address book stuff.

If you have any questions or comments, click