If your talking about the files that you create in the My Documents folder pictures, word Documents etc. Then you could open My Computer look for the Maxor removable Storage drive, right click on it and choose reformat. This will erase all data on the drive. Then you could drag your My Documents folder over the drive to back up your present files that you created.

OK so how are you creating your backups? Are you using the program Maxtor provides free? When you start your backups are you invited to create either full backup or an incremental?

Plug your external drive into the computer, right click on Start, Click Explore

In the new window look down the left side for your external drive, it might be F:\Maxtor (or something similar) or any letter above depending on how your computer 'sees' the USB ports. Once you have found the drive click on it once and the contents will appear on the right side of your screen. You can then see what has been created and of course you can certainly wipe older ones off as long as you have one full backup with a later date.

Yes. You can use windows explorer (not internet explorer, but windows explorer) and highlight the files you want to delete and press the delete button. You probably want to leave things that came with the drive.

How big is the Maxtor hard drive? How big is your computer's hard drive? And how much of your computer's hard drive is full?

The Maxtor is 160 GB, my computer is 160 GB but the computer has only used 60 GB so I have lots of computer space left.

TO CREATE THE FIRST BACK UP I click on the maxtor Icon on my task bar after that mAXTOR is set to automatically create backups.

With Maxtor automatically creating backups I think it is making a complete new one each month because the backup drive is full.

OBWIST, I do see the the Maxtor drive backups in the Explore list Do I just simply delete those files from here to take them off of the Maxtor drive?

Loralee you can use Windows Explorer to remove any entries from the computer hard drive or the external although if it is a program then the Add/Remove feature should be used first then check Explorer for remnants left by untidy uninstallers.

In Windows Explorer up at the top is a small box icon with a down arrow, here you can elect to see the contents as bare names, Details, icons etc. Select Details so you can see the date and size of each backup. Now you can compare them and if they are all somewhat of the same size then you could safely assume they are all full backups and later ones not incremental on the original.

Of course the best solution in my mind would be to run a full anti virus and anti malware scan, run Ccleaner or similar to clean all the junk off the computer then create a new image and remove all the others. That is as long as you are happy with the way the computer is behaving right now. No point backing up while there are any annoying issues unresolved.

Thank you very much for your help.

I had no idea that the Maxator back-up did complete new backups each time. My plan for the future will be to keep the lastest backup and remove the previous one. As it is taking me hours to get rid of some of these backups and I have only just begun.

I did do the Anti Malware scan on this drive yesterday This is when I discovered the whole 160 GB drive was full and that is why it took 6 hours to do both the computer and the backup drive!

I would not just keep one you have the right idea but never be left with just one backup in case that one happens to be corrupt so keep at least 2-3 at a time.
And be sure you do know how to use the backup should you need to.

"If there's one thing you must learn on your computer, it is how to create and maintain backups of your data. I have learned this rule of thumb: any data on my computer doesn't exist unless it exists in at least 2 places. Any important data on my computer (home movies, irreplaceable photos of my kids) doesn't exist unless it exists in THREE places. I highly recommend online backups as a way to keep your data safe."

"Below are the services I have used and my experiences with them. It's taken me more than a year to settle on a service, comparing Jungledisk vs Carbonite vs Backblaze vs Mozy vs MobileMe/iDisk vs Dropbox. The short answer is that I now use and wholly recommend Backblaze. But first, let's examine why you need an online backup solution in the first place."

See link for more:

"http://www.help2go.com/content/reviews/6-online-backups-comparing-carbonite-backblaze-jungledisk-more.html";

I went on line and found lots of information regarding Maxtor. So if the need ever be I know how to use my back up to reinstall my important files.

Thanks for everyones input. I have deleted lots of the old back ups and have 3 backups on the Maxtor and room now left for more backups in the future.