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Back Up Your Computer Files! (2007-02)
Last month, we decided to start taking backups of our computer files(link to last month). One of our readers asks the question, how often is frequently? Well, the answer to that is "it depends". It depends on how much time you are willing to spend to re-create the files you lost. For most of us, monthly backup is the recommended frequency.
Once you decided on how frequently you need to backup your files, you have two options to do the back ups on that schedule. You can use the advanced options to set up a scheduled time, or you can remind yourself to do it monthly.
Using the Backup or Restore Wizard's advanced option, just click on Advanced when you are setting up your backup job.
Type of Backup, we recommend Normal. You will also be asked How to back up, select verify Data After back up.
Next question is the Backup Option. Do you want to append this back to the existing back up or replace the existing? Select append to existing backup rather than replacing, unless you are approaching a disk space limit. Next, you will schedule your backup to run at the frequency and time you decided on.
Click on the Set Schedule button and the Schedule Job wizard comes up. These are our recommended settings.
Schedule Task: Select Monthly.
Start Time: set it at 3am when we are sleeping
Schedule Task Monthly: The Second Sunday of the month.
Press OK, and you will be asked to supply an ID and PW, use the ID / PW you use to log into the computer.
Press OK, you will see the confirmation Screen. Press FINISH, to complete the scheduling of your backup. You have successfully setup your computer to do backups, leaving more time for you to have fun!.
Let say a few months down the road you wanted to make a change to the time the backup is executed? You can modify by editing the schedule. In Control Panel, there is the scheduled Tasks link; you can see the Second Sunday of Each Month backup job scheduled. Double click to modify as needed.
Now that you have the files backup up, how, do you restore them when you need them? First, find your backup files using Windows Explorer. Double click on the backup file, in this case, Monthly.bkf, and the Backup Restore Wizard will appear.
Select Restore files and Settings, and Press NEXT. You are then asked to select the files you want to restore.
Select the files, then, press NEXT. There will be a series of screens showing the progress of the restore, and eventually (depending on how many files you are restoring), the Restore Completed screen will come up.
Using this simple back up and restore, the files are all place back into their original file folders where they were backed up from. Next month, we will look at how to utilize Calendar programs to simplify our lives.
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