I am always amazed when people say they have loads of photos or music that they do not want to lose or cannot replace yet have never backed up these valuables. If your hard drive fails tomorrow you have a very real problem. You are not alone in this and I am not trying to be mean spirited but if you fail to look after you and your possessions then who will?

For less than $50 you can buy a name brand DVD-RW and for under $20 you can buy 100 blank DVDs. You can buy a lesser amount of blanks of course, that is a choice you can make. The DVD will come with software you install to use it. Or if you already have blank CDs you could use those in the DVD burner.

If you back some of that stuff up and remove it from this computer it may well run faster because you will have more free space on the hard drive for the swap file to work better. Does your activity light come on frequently and stay on for long periods? If so this is an indication the swap file is have a problem.

Then if you really want to get carried away you can visit Big Lots where they have (or did recently in the Buffalo, NY store) CD or DVD labels and the software to create your own labels for $10 or $11.

Another option would be to install this hard drive as a slave in the new computer you intend to buy. You would need to check that there are compatible data connections in the new computer. Older hard drives are IDE or ATA but the newer and faster technology is SATA.

How about buying a 2.5" USB caddy & connecting the old drive to your new computer? You could then transfer your files, format the old drive, and possibly use it for backup.

Over the past 20 years I've backed up on small floppies, Tape, CD, and now external hard drive.

The external is by far the easiest and simpliest to use. Its also pretty darn quick. Splurge a little and get yourself an external.

Bob

Thank you, Bob, I have the external drive in my hot little hand. :-) I may give it a shot tomorrow, after I check out whether I want to consider the USB Caddy that Peggy mentioned. Can I assume that the external drive, which is a 160GB One Touch 4 Mini from Maxtor that was on sale at Staples for $99. will provide me with step by step directions for how to use it? I haven't opened the box yet. I have gone through my hard drive and know which files I want to save.

Peggy, I am also very interested in the USB caddy that you mentioned. I would like an easy way to transfer the files, I will need to clean my old drive and I do have someone who might be able to use my old machine in a limited way, if it keeps running. I have not heard of a USB caddy before, but I will look it up to see what that is all about. It would be nice if it could be used as a backup too. Thanks.

owbist, as I said in my post, my personal photos are already on memory cards, so I have a back up of them and really although I would be disappointed to lose the rest, nothing else would be irreplaceable. Would it have been better if I had backed them all up in a timely fashion, sure. What is ideal is not always what we are able to do.

I did appreciate the information you shared about some of my other options..thank you.

pm2

Just a word of caution. You will not be able to put word on your new computer by backing it up. You will need the cd to install it. If you don't find it and don't want to buy word you might consider Open Office which is free. The Writer module will read your old word files and save new files in word format if you wish to save them that way. There will be a slight learning curve but it's not bad and lots of help is available.

Bob...thanks for that info. I think I had read about this free software you suggest. I use Works Suite for 80% of the work I do, once in awhile you really need the Word program. So, for that small amount of time I use it, I wouldn't purchase a new one if that was my only option. I will check out Open Office, thanks for the link!

:-)

pm2,

Don't know if your Maxtor will have software for backup. Just so we're talking the same language, backup to me means copying data or graphics to another location. On my Win XP and Win 98 machines, the external hard drive will appear under my computer as a removeable drive and I can highlight files and folders and simply send them to the removeable drive. And I do that sometimes. More frequently I clone the systems which is to make a complete copy of everthing. To do that you'll likely need some additional software. Acronis seems to be a favorite with many people who post to this forum.

Bob

RR Bob, if your external drive is Maxtor or Seagate you can download the free software to backup/clone the entire computer. Seagate - who now own Maxtor - recently created a deal with Acronis to use their software for this. You can visit the Maxtor or Seagate web site and download the program for free.

pm2 can also do this as they have a Maxtor.

Thanks, Owbist. Good info to have.

Bob