How do I backup Windows 7 files on an external hard drive?

Lyndon

I'm changing to a Windows 8 and I want to know how to backup my data from my Windows 7 with an external hard drive.
What kind of external hard drive should I use?

Answer
When updating from windows 7 to Windows 8 the computer automatically backs up your files, but if you want to do it on an external hard drive just connect the External HDD and copy the entire C: drive and paste it onto the External HDD

i am confused what to buy, internal or external hard drive for backup?

Black

i need 1TB hard drive for my data backup and i need an external one but don't know is it better? i am confused someone says that pre-made external is not more reliable because of heating problem and suggest me to buy an internal hard drive for laptop and use an enclosure to make it external as it would be better than ready made external hard drive, someone says that external hard drives are not safe, i am totally confused and don't know what to buy. please tell me which would be more reliable and how, as i need it right now?

Answer
I'd recommend an External drive - although these can often cost a little more and be slower, the pro's as a backup are much better.

- Drive can be moved around or connected to other computers as required
- If your computer is stolen or blows up then your backups are safe
- If you upgrade or reformat your computer then your files can be accessed straight away

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i am confused what to buy, internal or external hard drive for backup?

Q. i need 1TB hard drive for my data backup and i need an external one but don't know is it better? i am confused someone says that pre-made external is not more reliable because of heating problem and suggest me to buy an internal hard drive for laptop and use an enclosure to make it external as it would be better than ready made external hard drive, someone says that external hard drives are not safe, i am totally confused and don't know what to buy. please tell me which would be more reliable and how, as i need it right now?

Answer
I'd recommend an External drive - although these can often cost a little more and be slower, the pro's as a backup are much better.

- Drive can be moved around or connected to other computers as required
- If your computer is stolen or blows up then your backups are safe
- If you upgrade or reformat your computer then your files can be accessed straight away

how to backup everything from mac onto external hard drive?

Q. i recently bought a 1tb seagate backup plus hard drive and i was wondering how i would begin to back up everything from my mac to the hd. is there a quick button to click that will capture everything within my mac instead of having to select individual files to drag and drop into the hd?

I am also using the hd with a windows comp and it is already compatible with both mac+windows

Answer
What version of Mac OS X ?
How to Do a Mac Backup to an External Drive
Read more: http://www.ehow.com/how_7257538_do-mac-backup-external-drive.html#ixzz2tip7CWOA

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What is best free backup/sync software for Iomega external hard drive?

hockeyaand

I bought the Iomega Prestige Compact Edition USB 2.0 1 TB Portable External Hard Drive 34866 and was wondering what is the top software to backup/sync my laptop running vista. Preferably free. Thanks.

Answer
I use and recommend you Handy Backup, it's good and reliable software to backup/sync your laptop to external hard drive. Compatible with Windows Vista. It has free version also.

http://www.handy-backup.com - free edition
http://www.handybackup.net - free trial

LaCie external Hard drive continuously disconnecting during backup.?

Travis Mil

I just bought an Alienware M15X laptop and am trying to run a backup onto a LaCie 1TB d2 quadra external hard drive as advised to me by my uni lecturers.
However, every time I run the backup via the esata or USB 2.0 connection ports the external hard drive disconnects and the backup fails.

Can anybody please explain to me why this is happening?

I currently have the external hard drive formatted for NTFS and it just won't work.
I took it back to the store and they reformatted it to OS X for macs and it worked perfectly for them, But when I try to do it after reformatting for PC it continues to disconnect

An icon saying "Intel Rapid Storage Technology: Disc on Port 4: Removed" comes up.

It's sending me crazy.
Please help.
I took it back and we did all of that and it's still faulty.
I've had he switch on "on" evrytime I run the backup, but it still cuts out.
all the cables are connected properly, but it still cuts out.
I'm really not sure what to do.

I don't think they're going to allow me to return it becaus of their returns policy, because it's opened and past the 2 weeks of when I bought it.

It's rubbish. I'll try one more time to redformat it, but I'm getting really frustrated with it.

Answer
It shouldn't do this and may be faulty. Take it back to the store and bring your laptop this time, along with all of the cables and power supply. Check the cables and the power supply first. Try powering the external drive directly from the mains and not through a hub. Does the drive get hot?

Before you go back, one thing you could check is the position of the power switch on the back. I have the same drive, and the switch has three settings: On, Auto, and Off. In Auto, the drive will power down if it is not in use. Quite why your drive might think it is not in use during a backup I don't know. Anyway, try setting the switch to On if it is currently in Auto. If it still disconnects, then it is faulty. There are reports of the 500GB version having problems with the controller, which might translate across.

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how to backup everything from mac onto external hard drive?

trinh

i recently bought a 1tb seagate backup plus hard drive and i was wondering how i would begin to back up everything from my mac to the hd. is there a quick button to click that will capture everything within my mac instead of having to select individual files to drag and drop into the hd?

I am also using the hd with a windows comp and it is already compatible with both mac+windows

Answer
What version of Mac OS X ?
How to Do a Mac Backup to an External Drive
Read more: http://www.ehow.com/how_7257538_do-mac-backup-external-drive.html#ixzz2tip7CWOA

External backup storage - should I go with DVD burner or hard drive?

Tim D

We already use Carbonite, but my wife would like to also use another option to have backups of our photos "in our house", just in case. I'm debating between a DVD burner versus a 250 GB hard drive. Both would be USB 2.0, and cost about the same. I feel like the DVD's would be more reliable, but the hard drive would be more convenient. I plan to store the backups in our FireSafe, so even with a hard drive, it wouldn't be connected all the time.
Which way should I go? Are there other good options I'm not considering? We currently have 20 GB of photos, but I'm sure that will double within 2-3 years.

Answer
I too, would go with a hard drive. Faster backups and restores.

Optical media can degrade over time, accelerated by environmental exposure (sunlight, temperature etc). They might be good 10 years from now or maybe not. A hard drive will usually last unless it's physically dropped. The moving parts won't wear out unless you're using it extensively rather than for archiving. But the biggest reason is the worst-case scenario... data can often be retrieved from a failed hard drive (although sometimes at great hassle or expense, but there's a whole industry out there which deals with these problems on the corporate level). When a DVD or CD is bad, it's a coaster.

If you go the DVD route, check your old backups every few years and ideally, transfer them to a current form of storage. How would you like to be the guy today who backed everything up onto ZIP drives 15 years ago?

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Whats a good external hard drive for casual use?

best external hard drives backup image

David

I just want a solid external hard drive for backup purposes. I have an iMac with a 1TB hard drive. I'll never use that up, so somewhere between 640-1TB should be good. I want to be able to use it for quite a few years too. Thanks.

Answer
"I have an iMac with a 1TB hard drive. I'll never use that up, so somewhere between 640-1TB should be good."

I have discovered a maxim about storage: 'Data expands to exceed available space". It is a corollary of 'You can never have too much speed (GHz), memory (RAM) or (disk) storage.' I remember when I got my first 3GB drive and had the feeling of never being able to fill it. I have more RAM than that now.

I would choose a good enclosure (from reviews like those at Newegg.com) and then choose an appropriately sized HDD for it. This will preclude you from vendor lock in like WD and Seagate have been doing with proprietary software in their recent all-in-one drives. This also allows you a simpler way of swapping out a dead or dying drive and reusing the casing. I have several generic enclosures that I use regularly as well as a drive dock, which is designed and built to eject drives with out opening the case (like a toaster). You might consider one of these as well.

Vantec NexStar NST-D100

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817392029&cm_re=nst_d100-_-17-392-029-_-Product

Newegg's listings for enclosures by rating:

http://www.newegg.com/Store/SubCategory.aspx?SubCategory=92&name=External-Enclosures&Order=RATING

Good luck.

What is a good external hard drive brand?

Geo27_90

I want to buy an external hard drive to backup my data i would like a 320-500GB hard drive and i was wondering what is a good brand to buy also my budget is 120 dollars.
I need it to backup 180GB of space,
Oh and I heard that "click free automatic backup hard drive" is good would current owners recommend it or not?

Answer
Western Digital. I've had a terabyte one for almost a year and no problems whatsoever

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External hard drives: This is probably a dumb question, but if I backup my itunes library on an external hard?

best external hard drives backup image

foreseason

drive, do I keep the hard drive plugged into my computer at all times, or do I unplug it once I do the backup. Also, do I need and external hard drive to backup itunes, or will a flash drive suffice?

Answer
No,you still have the file on your computer after you backed up the files.You don't need to plug to your computer all time. You only need to plug to the computer when you want to syncronize it or adding files to it.

It will be advisable to also have your important files on a flash drive with enough space, since most of the time the USB port of the external hard drive lose contact and the computer cannot recorgnise it when you connect.

Whats a good external hard drive for casual use?

David

I just want a solid external hard drive for backup purposes. I have an iMac with a 1TB hard drive. I'll never use that up, so somewhere between 640-1TB should be good. I want to be able to use it for quite a few years too. Thanks.

Answer
"I have an iMac with a 1TB hard drive. I'll never use that up, so somewhere between 640-1TB should be good."

I have discovered a maxim about storage: 'Data expands to exceed available space". It is a corollary of 'You can never have too much speed (GHz), memory (RAM) or (disk) storage.' I remember when I got my first 3GB drive and had the feeling of never being able to fill it. I have more RAM than that now.

I would choose a good enclosure (from reviews like those at Newegg.com) and then choose an appropriately sized HDD for it. This will preclude you from vendor lock in like WD and Seagate have been doing with proprietary software in their recent all-in-one drives. This also allows you a simpler way of swapping out a dead or dying drive and reusing the casing. I have several generic enclosures that I use regularly as well as a drive dock, which is designed and built to eject drives with out opening the case (like a toaster). You might consider one of these as well.

Vantec NexStar NST-D100

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817392029&cm_re=nst_d100-_-17-392-029-_-Product

Newegg's listings for enclosures by rating:

http://www.newegg.com/Store/SubCategory.aspx?SubCategory=92&name=External-Enclosures&Order=RATING

Good luck.

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What is the best external hard drive for mirroring folders?

best external hard drives backup image

ebudde

My mom has had troubles with her hard drive failing. I'd like to get her an external hard drive to backup her data. What I'd really like, however, is for that drive to just mirror a couple of folders (say her My Documents) so that anytime a file is added or udpated, it automatically goes to the external drive as well. I don't think she needs super-powered RAID drives aimed at a corporate market. I just want something simple that I can walk her through the set-up once and have it just work for her.

Any recommendations?

Answer
Many of the articles and review in the Storage section of ExtremeTech are about external hard-drives:

http://www.extremetech.com/category2/0,1695,481,00.asp

ConsumerSearch has an External Hard Drives section:

http://www.consumersearch.com/www/computers/external-hard-drives/index.html

Whats a good external hard drive to backup all my hard drives files that has fire wire?

Assman T

Whats a good external hard drive to backup all my hard drives files that has fire wire?

Answer
I love "my books" for backups...in case of fire..Some of those have "fire wire" dealies...lol..tc/ God Bless you;)

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What's the difference between a Desktop External Hard Drive and a External Portable Hard Drive?

best external hard drives backup image

Colin H

I have a laptop and I would like to get an external hard drive to backup my data. I was wondering the difference between a Desktop External Hard Drive and a External Portable Hard Drive. Can I use a Desktop External Hard Drive with my laptop? Or not? Please be as detailed as you can as I am somewhat computer illiterate. All help would be greatly appreciated.

Answer
Both would work with your laptop as they both use a USB port to connect to your computer, which both laptops and desktops are equipped with.

Desktop Eternal Hard drive- It is physically larger and is used for larger storage needs. These drives need to be plugged in to their own power supply in order to work. This doesn't necessarily mean you can't pick up the drive and take it with you, it's just that it's larger and more cumbersome, because it needs to be plugged into an outlet in order to run. So these are ideal for leaving on your desk at home or work.

Pros: More storage capacity
Cons: Needs an outside power source

External Portable Hard Drive: A smaller physical drive, therefore more portable. It doesn't require an outside power source. It will run off the power from your laptop. These tend to have small storage capacities than the Desktop Drives though. But they are also small enough to thrown in your laptop bag or backpack on the go as they tend to have a low profile.

Pro: Small and portable, No external power needed
Con: Smaller storage capacities, draws power from your laptop and can be battery draining if constantly plugged in.

So you need to figure out what you'll be using the drive for. If it's just for storing and backing up your system, go for the desktop drive. If you think you'll be using the external drive to backup files on the go, or transporting files, go with the portable drive. I can guarantee both with work with your computer. It is just a matter of figuring out your needs.

How do i delete old backup from another computer on external hard drive?

Rebba

I have an Maxtor onetouch 4plus external hard drive with old backup from another computer in it.. I want to use this hard drive on a newer computer, how do i delete the old back up ?

Answer
You can format the drive.

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