Windows Backup - Why Should I Backup My Windows Computer and How Often?

Question: Windows Backup - Why Should I Backup My Windows Computer and How Often?

Doing a Windows backup is one of the smartest things you can do to protect the important information, photos, music and critical data on your computer.

Answer: Your hard drive is going to crash – it is just a question of when. The average life expectancy of a hard drive is 3 to 5 years.

Backups should include email, internet bookmarks, work files, data files from finance programs like Quicken, digital photos and anything else you can’t afford to loose. You can easily copy all your files to a CD or another computer on your home network. Also, keep all your original Windows and program installation CDs in a safe place.

How often, you ask? Look at it this way: Any file you cannot afford to lose (what will take too long to re-create or is unique and cannot be re-created), should be located on two separate physical media, such as on two hard drives, or a hard drive and a CD. That type of important information should be backed up daily (if any file information has changed).

If you decide that you want to do a complete hard drive backup, consider these:

• If you have Windows Vista, use this Vista backup and restore procedure.
  
  
• If you have Windows XP, you can use a third party software - there are many great programs available. Macrium Reflect Free Edition is the one I use at home and I have had great results with it.