Nobody realises how important backing up their personal data is, until it unexpectedly goes missing. Our step-by-step guide will make it simple to preserve your precious photographs, videos and other digital memories.

Backing up data remains one of the great challenges for most PC owners. It’s not hard to imagine the potentially disastrous consequences of your computer losing all its files, whether that’s because of an unexpected hard drive crash, your house burning down, or even the theft of your machine. The popularity of digital cameras means we have more and bigger files than ever before, and such information is virtually irreplaceable. Yet despite the fact that it’s much easier (and cheaper) to make copies of such files than it is to reproduce an old-fashioned photo album, we remain quite slack about safeguarding our information. According to a study conducted by drive manufacturer Maxtor, just 46% of individuals make backups of their personal information. However, using freely available tools, it’s possible to make regular backups a part of your daily routine.

What media should I use?
There are three basic choices available for backing up if you own a single PC: external devices such as hard drives and USB keys, recordable media such as DVDs and CDs, or backing files up via the Internet to a secure location. (The last is a useful option for small businesses, but probably over the top for home users; however, if you’re curious, you can find a directory of such services at tinyurl.com/yhvp42) Recordable media have the advantage of being fairly cheap and highly portable, so it’s possible to make copies and store them somewhere other than your home. (That might seem like overkill, but bear in mind that in the event of disaster or theft, you could lose your backups as well as your PC.) The disadvantage is that even on

How much space do I need?
For a quick estimate of how much backup space you’ll need, right-click on My Documents in an Explorer window, and select Properties. Make sure the General tab is selected, and you’ll get a total size for the entire directory, which will tell you the total size of the folder. If the size seems large, check whether you really need to back up all the sub-directories. For instance, if your My Music folder only contains music ripped from your own CDs, you probably don’t need to back that up regularly.

Your backup checklist
If you can’t answer ‘YES’ to all these questions, you need to refine your backup strategy: • Am I making regular backup copies of the My Documents folder on my PC, and of any other important files? • Am I storing some copies of these files away from where my PC is located? • Have I got my software installation discs (and associated passwords) stored together in a secure location? It’s relatively easy to reinstall software, and you can always download freeware programs, but you still need the CDs for commercial applications. • Do I regularly check my backup plans to ensure I’m capturing all important files? If you’ve installed new software or purchased a new gadget, your needs have probably changed.

What software should I use?
While Windows has a built-in backup tool, it’s not particularly flexible and doesn’t let you perform incremental backups. It can be useful if you want to do a backup of your entire PC (if you have a big enough external drive); you can find it under the All Programs>Accessories>System Tools folder. Our preferred tool for incremental backup is SyncBack, which is available for free download at tinyurl.com/5jatb (There’s also a commercial version, SyncBackSE, for more complicated backup needs.) After downloading and installation, you need to create a profile, which describes which data you want to copy and where you want to store it. To do that, follow these steps:

• Run SyncBack, and select New from the Profile menu.
• Select Backup for your profile type, and click OK.
• Give your profile a name (such as ‘Susan’s file backups’), and click OK.
• Under Source, select the name of the directory you want to copy (most likely My Documents; see ‘Where to find specific files’ for other options).
• Under Destination, select the external drive or device.
• Click on OK. You can optionally run a simulation of the backup process, to ensure it captures all the files you expect.

If you want to back up files in other directories (such as email), simply create additional profiles and point them at the appropriate directories. Once you’ve created profiles, you can run a backup at any time by running SyncBack, right-clicking on the profile and selecting Run. This will be slow the first time, but much faster on subsequent occasions. Handily, you can also tell SyncBack to regularly perform backups at a set time each day. Rightclick on a profile, and select Schedule. (Ignore any messages about password enablement and simply click OK.) Make sure the Schedule tab is selected, and then set appropriate schedule options (such as every day at 10am). Provided your PC is switched on, backups will be performed automatically.

Where to find specific files
The most important file to back up for most users is My Documents, since this will normally contain all of your personal information such as photos, documents and spreadsheets. However, this won’t necessarily capture everything, since some common programs store their files in unusual locations. Add these locations to your SyncBack profile, or burn them regularly to disc.

Bookmarks/Favourites
Internet Explorer users can back up their favourites by following these steps:

• Select Import and Export from the program’s File menu, and click Next;
• Select ‘Export Favorites’, then click Next;
• If you only want to back up specific sub-folders in Favorites, click on them; otherwise simply click Next.
• By default, your favourites will be stored in a file called ‘bookmarks.htm’ in your My Documents folder (which makes it easy to back them up subsequently). If you want to change this location, click Browse; otherwise, click Next. Click Finish and the file will be created. Firefox stores its bookmarks in a file called bookmarks.html. This is normally located in the folder C:\Documents and Settings\username\ Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\default. qfb\bookmarks.html. If you can’t find it, search for the filename using the instructions given below for email.

Email
Mail clients tend to store their files (including contacts) in highly obscure locations. The easiest way to find them is to use the Search function on the main Windows XP menu:

• In the search dialog box, click on ‘All files and folders’.
• Under More advanced options, make sure ‘Search system folders’, ‘Search hidden files and folders’ and ‘Search subfolders’ are all selected.
• Enter the filenames required for your client below. Once you’ve located the folder, make a note of it and add it to your backup software’s regular list. (You can select the entire folder name in the Search window, then right-click and select Copy, and then paste it directly into your backup program to avoid mistakes.)
  For Outlook Express, search for files called *.dbx. There’s a separate file for each folder in your mail client, and you’ll need to make copies of them all.
  For Outlook, search for files called *.pst. The main file is called outlook.pst; if you have automatic archiving enabled, there’ll also be a file called archive.pst. You only need to copy these two files (though you can’t do this while Outlook itself is running, annoyingly).
  For Thunderbird, back up the whole contents of the C:\Documents and Settings\username\ Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\ directory. (You must exit Thunderbird and Firefox first.)

Also
Check any specific programs you use regularly (such as personal finance packages) to see if they store their files in a non-standard location. If programs give you a choice about this on installation, place files in My Documents or one of its sub-directories; it will make backup easier in the long run.