Need Help backing up

[rufio1066]

Hey guys, I am stuck with a problem. My father has a crappy old Compaq PC. This thing has never been reformatted or anything so hes been adding data to the HDD from day 1 when he purchased it. This PC needs a reinstall of windows BADLY. The thing is my father has tons of files and personal data on the PC that he wants backed up. The other thing that totally sucks is he is the worst when it comes to orginization. So whenever he saved a file or whatever he just saved it in the first place that popped up, so in essence hes got files that he probablly needs some day and he hasn't got the foggiest of ideas where they are located.

Sooo, can anybody help me by offering up some sort of suggestion on how to backup the thousands of random files all over his HDD so I can reinstall windows? I'm very new to backing up. So I don't know if there is a simple fix or if this is going to be a pain in the butt to backup like I think it's going to be. My first thought is getting an external HDD and using that, but again im new to backing up and I don't exactly know how they work and what they will backup. Any help is definetly appreciated.

Cheers!

 

[aevm]

My guess is that it will be a pain.... I'd start by doing a search in Windows Explorer, choosing "All files and folders", "When was it modified", then providing the date when he bought the PC and today's date, There will be thousands of garbage files but also all the files he has ever modified or created. At worst, drag all you find to an external HDD.

 

[rufio1066]

Yea, my first instinct told me this was going to suck. I could kill my father for his orginizational skills. With an external drive, what is it just hooked up through USB and then XP would recognize it as another drive and basically just drag "C:" drive over into it? Is that how those external drives basically work?

 

[rockyjohn]

I empathize with you - this could be a major undertaking. Has he really created a lot of files?
A little planning first would help.

The safest thing would be to do what you suggest, and first just simply copy your entire C drive to an exeternal drive, and then work with this later. Note that you will still have a disorganized mess. But it is the quickest and safest way to handle it. Note that a USB drive will be very slow - although it might be your best option. Other options include inserting another HD if system will handle it or inserting an eSATA card and getting an eSATA drive, which would be much faster for all backups but cost about $100.

In any case, at sometime you should organize the files and you could do this before backing up - if you can take the time.

Can you identify most of them by some set of prefixes (eg. xls, doc ) based on the applications he used to create documents to help you narrow the search to ones he really needs to save? Do you have to go back to the beginning? Can you instead safely say if a document has not been modified in the past two years (or whatever) if can be ignored?

You might start by using Internet Explorer to delete all Temporary Internet Files to get them out of the way - if you have not done so recently.

Consider making My Documents the final resting place for all files - hopefully many of his files are already there. Move all your documents to one file first, then when donr backup that file to an external HD - or burn a CD or DVD if you can. This would probably be much faster than trying to directly backup each file you find.
Then create some kind of file organizaiton plan in My Documents and set up some folders. You can organize the files already in My Documents or leave that for later - just trying to drop files from other locations into the new folders. Hopefully he gave his files descriptive names. Also create a something like a "To be filed" folder to drop in all the files you cannot quickly identify for later organization.

Consider searching on "documents" and "Pictures, music or video" files rather than all files first and transfer all of the files identified there if they are not already in My Documents.

Also take care when moving files that you do not change the location of a folder or file required by a program. For example, make sure you identify where your email program stores emails and don't disrupt that file but make sure it is on your list to copy. You also want to ensure you don't mess with any Windows or other system files.

Since you may have a lot of files to move - you might also try experimenting a little. For instance, open one Windows Explorer to search with and a second Window to paste to. In the second window, open the My Documents file. In the first window, search for all .doc files. When you have the list, see if you can cut - from the Search Window and paste into the Second Explorer window if the My Documents folder or subfolder. Try with one file first to see if it works, and if so, then several at one time, and finally 10 to 20 or maybe more.

Good luck.

After you reformat, you might consider setting up a partition. Computer will assisgn a new drive letter to the second partition just as if you had a second HD. Then put a My Documents file on the second partition - then ALWAYS save there. Move your email file to that drive also. Makes it easy to backup that drive and if you ever have to reformat you can reformat the C drive and still have all your data on the other "drive".

 

[rufio1066]

Hey, thanks RockyJohn!

This is going to be a monumental task. You definetly gave me some pointers on how to attack this. You asked if he would need or care about files that haven't been modified in the past two years. Well, lol, the thing is my father is an Auditor. He dosen't throw ANYTHING away. We have more file cabinets than I can count. How he can be an auditor and have practically the world's worst orginizational skills I'll never know.

I'll defintely give those things a shot in this job. Again, thanks for the advice.

 

[firemist]

You may want to look at the "Files and Settings Transfer Wizzard" in the accessories -> system tools menu and see if that is an option for extracting the information to an external disk. Sifting through the files and organizing them will suck.

 

[rockyjohn]

Hey, thanks RockyJohn!
Well, lol, the thing is my father is an Auditor. He dosen't throw ANYTHING away. We have more file cabinets than I can count. How he can be an auditor and have practically the world's worst orginizational skills I'll never know.

I am an accountant that prepares financial reports for auditors to review. I know they have to organize reams of data so a third party can come back years later, if necessary, and find exactly what they need quickly from the reams of files - more and more of which is being done electronically.

If you have to save everything, then I would consider backing up the entire drive to an external backup drive first. Make sure the backup lets you see the folder organization and search individual files and folders. Some only do a system backup that requires restoring the whole system - you don't want this. Then go in and find all the files you conveniently find - using some of the suggestions above and move them to the new documents folder. If you are doing this on the backup file you don't have to worry about moving a file and corrupting a program since you won't be using the programs off the backup. Then go in and delete all the application programs, including Windows, if you are CERTAIN they contain no data files. When you have completed this, stop searching. You now have the new data file - with only data you want - and the old C drive file containing some mix of applications and buried data files. Now just work with the data files. If you ever have a need for a file that you did not move to the data file, then go search the other files - the old C drive file - to try to find it.

Meanwhile reformat and reinstall your operating system and applications and settings. Which reminds me - don't forget to save your documents and settings file separately on the backup drive so you can restore it and your settings after reformating your drive. When you have Windows and other applications reinstalled, and restored your documents and settings, go in and backup this file to a separate place on your external drive. Use a backup program that can save and restore it in bulk. Now you can restore that portion whenever you need to and do it quickly with reformat and backup restore. Then copy your new data file to the restored drive. Make sure all new documents and edits are restored to this file and back it up regularly.