Backing Up Your Data – Why You Need To Do It
Data loss can happen in many ways. One of the most common causes is a physical failure of the media the data is stored on, in addition, Malware can infect your system and corrupt or encrypt files. You probably have everything saved on your PC’s hard drive. That hard drive will not live forever. To quote one of the tech geeks I follow, “there are only two types of hard drives – the ones that have failed and the ones that will fail.” Normally hard drives will live for years without incident. But eventually, they will die. It might happen gradually, by more and more bad clusters accumulating until most of the drive is unusable. Or it might happen suddenly; the hard drive dies without warning.
I don’t recommend so-called backup software. It is often buggy, difficult, or confusing to use and most programs make one big glob (large proprietary file) that is hard to verify and requires having the backup program installed to read the files or restore them.
Copy Files To An External Drive
Copy the files in your Documents, Photo, Video, and Download folders to the external drive.
It is not possible to back up programs (applications) or Windows. If your hard drive fails, you will install Windows from the Win 11 installation media and any applications like Word, Excel, and Quicken, either from the disks that came with your computer or, more commonly, by downloading an installation file from the creator’s website and installing it. If you need to install or reinstall Windows 11, you can use the tools on this page to create your own installation media using a USB flash drive.
Gmail’s free products keep your data backed up online.
- If you use Gmail, your Contacts and e-mail are stored safely in the cloud. I use many Google services! Glenn
- Google Drive is a free Word processor and spreadsheet similar to Microsoft Word and Excel. You can upload existing Word or Excel documents to Google Docs for free, which is a great way to protect your Microsoft Office documents from getting lost.
- Getting started with Gmail and Google services.
Store and sync your photos by uploading them to Google Photos.
Google Drive for desktop: Use Google Drive to automatically back up photos from your computer to Google Photos
- How to use Google Drive – You can store your files securely and open or edit them from any device using Google Drive.
- Back up photos and videos—When you turn on backup, your photos and videos will automatically be saved to your Google Account.
Back up photos & videos from a desktop with Google Drive Backup: What Are Your Options? by Spanning Cloud Apps
Subscription Backup Services
- Get Carbonite, and it’s easy to use. It isn’t enough to back up to a hard drive. You have to have an off-site backup as well. – Backup rules are simple: there have to be two copies of everything, with a third copy offsite. Francis Ford Copolla had all his scripts, laptop, and backups stolen! You need an off-site option as well. I use this service! Glenn
Use the built-in disk-burning software in Win 10. Insert a blank CD or DVD and follow the instructions. How to Copy Files to a CD or DVD in Windows 11
- USB C Hard Drive Enclosure USB 3.1 ORICO 2.5 inch Hard Drive Enclosure SATA to USB C 3.1 6Gbps External Hard Drive Case $17
- 512GB SSD 3D NAND $50 to $80