how to backup?

3greenrizla's

I need to bring the Laptop into be fixed, it isnt charging properly, & the lead has a tendancy to get very very hot, also it could do with a service before the 3 year insurance runs out (it might even be dropped before it goes in )

so I bought myself an external Harddrive but have no idea how to do a system back up.

I am using windows XP but dont have a disc (& if I did I probably wouldnt know what to do with it)

how do I go about backing up info like outlook, word & other programmes?
or how do do a full system back up?

I know I should know how to do stuff like this but I dont, any help for me out there.



thanks in advance.

irlrobins

Two ways to approach this.

1) You can backup the laptop as is (i.e. all data, all programs, etc). This is known as taking an image of the HD. You can then reimage the laptop when you get it back and it will be exactly as it was before. Norton's Ghost is probably the best known image making program.

2) Just back up your data. Just copy the contents of your my documents folder, your email address book, inbox, other folders containing files you want to keep to the external HD. Then when you get laptop back (assuming the HD has been wiped) you reinstall Word, outlook, etc from CD then restore all your data from the external HD. A bit slower than imagaing (since you have to reinstall all the apps) but at least you will have a cleaner system as you'll only be reinstalling apps you need.

A good tool for backing up files is Microsoft's SyncToy. Very easy to use and free!