Best way to back up my files (I am very computer-challenged)

Hello, I have some material that is important to me, and I wish to find out the best way to keep back-up copies to protect it.  It's all text, there is no pictures, images, or movies or audio or anything.  Just plain text files.

So far here's what I do:  I save my text files in notepad, on my laptop.  I also save them on my Lexar flash drive.  And then, I email myself my text files in gmail, so that in case the two methods mentioned above fail for some reason. So basically I have three ways to back up my files.

I am just wondering if there is any other safe and very low-tech way to protect my files.  I am not good with computers at all so please keep your response as idiot-proof as possible, thank you.

Backup your files to a second and third flash drive depending on how much you value the files.

Here's something I put together a few years back for another site. Hope it helps:

Disk Imaging software takes a "snapshot" of your drive as it exists at the time you create the image. You can then restore the entire image or any file(s) or folder(s) you choose. It is a virtually foolproof way of backing up your system and providing a safe haven in the event of a catastrophe that requires you to blow away your system partition and restore it to a previous state. It also allows you to "test" various software and be confident that you have a the ability to return to the prior state any time you choose.

I  used Acronis True Image for many years, but when they switched to a subscription model rather than outright user ownership, I moved to Macrium Reflect. It is every bit as reliable as Acronis and perhaps a bit more powerful.

1) I create an image of my system partition once a week to a secondary drive, rotating between two drives, and keep the 2 or 3 most recent images on each of those drives. In other words, week 1 the image is stored on secondary disc A and week two the image is stored on secondary disc B. I also image my other partitions about once a month. I always enable "verify image" in the options. It takes a little longer, but insures a valid image (the last thing you want is to try to restore an image only to find it is corrupt - it happens).

2) I also create an image before performing any drive level function (ie, changing the size of a partition) or making any significant change to the OS such as installing a service pack, or even when installing a "questionable" Windows update, etc.

3) Images may be created on any medium (external drive, usb drive, cd's or dvd's, etc). For obvious reasons they should not be stored on the same drive you are imaging. The easiest option is a second internal hd if you have one and, if you're really ambitious, to an external drive as well (one week to the internal & one week to the external or just duplicates on the external - that's actually the procedure I follow).

4) Images may be created "in the background" within the OS. If you need to restore the system partition, that will need to be done before the OS loads. You can start the process within the application in the OS and it will then tell you it needs to reboot to finish the process. Alternatively, you can boot to a "recovery disk" which you create from within the software (or to the application disk itself if you have one). Even easier, you can also use a built in tool to create a rescue environment on the PC itself (when the system first boots you will have the choice of booting to the OS or the rescue environment - the OS option can be an automated choice after "X" seconds so you do not need to make a manual choice every time the system boots). Non-system partitions or drives can be restored without a reboot.

Edited by Allan, 01 February 2024 - 09:58 AM.

+Allan (post #3)

Another really great feature of Reflect, is that all your data files are available in realtime. If you need some deleted files, say from 3 months ago, just access the Macrium Reflect image from 3 months ago that you have stored off-computer on your backup drive, and your whole system pops up exactly the same as File Explorer in Windows. Find your data and simply drag and drop it onto your desktop and "wallah", there are the files you need. No need to re-image your entire main drive. Can't beat it with stick.

And yet another +! for Allan's choice of Macrium Reflect.  It is the best product on the market, IMHO.  Others may differ.

The most important thing is to have a robust imaging/backup strategy with corresponding bootable recovery media.  Sadly, many users lose so much irreplaceable data because they don't take the time or realize the importance of having recent system images/backups to recover from computer glitches, Windows Updates, malware, hardware failures, etc.

Have a great day, and good luck.

Regards,

Phil

Edited by midimusicman79, 02 February 2024 - 04:09 AM.

I use EaseUS Todo Backup Free and Macrium Reflect Free for doing my imaging tasks.
 
Many home users just buy an external hard drive, copy their critical data to it, disconnect the device and store it in a safe/secure location rather than try to monitor and maintain a complex backup system. Programs like SoftByte Labs Comparator make doing these types of backups quick and easy for the average user or in between creating system images.