fwiw Speaking of backups... recently playing around... Have 8gb ram so I used a freeware, RamDisk, a very small program, to make a RamDrive = 770mb for RediBoost & balance for Browser cache & windows low disk space avoidance. Anyhow while searching web for how people use ram disks trying to figure out what I was doing wrong .. initially my startup & shutdown times went up ... I came across a regedit setting on increasing hard disk cache.. for win 7 / vista anyhow.. maybe same for xp. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management LargeSystemCache default 0, changed to 1 = supposed to be hard drive cache. ......... after changes both graphics ratings went up .1 from 6.2 to 6.3 in Windows Experience Index Daily backup & image went from 17 minutes to 11 consistently . Just confirmed once now, it was the registry change that sped up the backups. Thats quite a time savings here ... I usually stop and twiddle my thumbs when backup runs. Thought some here may be interested in trying that registry tweak.

Create the PDF...save it to your local machine...drag/drop it to the flash drive...what could be simpler? Am I missing something?

Many thanks, everybody, for your advice! That does help a lot. Yes, my photo files do seem to be saved, as they are still there when I turn the drive off and back on. Actually, once I turn the drive off the little "safely remove hardware" icon disappears from my computer screen. So I suspect it's only available when the computer can detect extra hardware plugged in. So is it okay to remove the drive from the computer, as long as the drive is turned off, without going through that "safely remove" thing first? To answer some of your questions, no, there was no pamphlet included with the drive so I didn't get the key code. It is a 500 GB drive and I think it was about 99 dollars that I paid for it. Though, as there was actually only 465 GB free on it, I knew there must be something else on there somewhere--even if it wasn't showing up! I had looked at the Seagate web site before, and I think I saw something on there which said they would send you the software if you gave them the serial number of the drive and a little other information. Though, at the time, I thought they met the installation software and I didn't think I needed that, as it had installed okay. So maybe I'll look into that--or demand a pamphlet from the seller!

It depends on what kind of backup you did. A full backup stores the entire working disk, in compressed format, onto the backup device. If you are using backup software and a full backup exists, then a new backup may have been an "incremental" one by default. When an incremental backup is done, the only files written to the new backup set are any new files not in the old set and any files that have been changed. Ususally, this second incremental set is much smaller than the original. Letrs suppose that the backup device has the following sets: 1. A full backup 2. Incremental 1 3. Incremental 2 4. Incremental 3 And now a disaster happens and there is a need to restore the files. The restoration has to follow the same order in which these sets were written. First, the full backup set is restored to the new drive followed by the incremental sets in order 2,3, and 4. It is important that the sets were named in way to identify the order in which they were written. A common method is to include the date in the set name. Use either the ascending or descending format for the date, e.g. "day Month Year" or "year Month day" I have big off-line disk and I do not use a compressed backup, nor do I backup my operating system. I back up only my data files and for that I do a direct copy. I have 2 hard drives in my computer and these are subdivided into several logical drives. I keep all my important files on one of the logical drives and when I backup, I merely copy the entire data drive. Its simple, easy, and lazy. I suppose that if I were dilligent, I would keep an "image" copy of the system disk. That could save a lot of time in case of a crash, because several years of updates would be there. The problem is the system image must be current. There can be losses if an image was made and then actions were done that made changes to the registery such as an install of an update or software - and now a crash occurs. There is no record of the new registry. When the system is restored, the registry can not recognize the newly installed system files. In some cases, the system may lock up when the user tries to run one of the new programs.