How to Backup Your Home Computer

Sooner or later, it will happen to every computer user. The hard drive does a crash and burn or the old motherboard goes menopausal with a hot flash meltdown. This inevitable event can be a major catastrophe. But if you've been backing up your data files on a regular basis, it will be just a minor inconvenience and annoyance.

Think about all the data you have stored on your hard drive: digital family photos, the home inventory, your tax returns, bank statements, your Christmas card mailing list, your address book, internet favorites, resumé, all the music you've downloaded. Now think about how you'll feel when - not if, but when -- your hard drive crashes and all of those files are destroyed. Makes me queasy just thinking about it. Are you convinced yet? I hope so.

Which Files Do I Need to Backup?

Have you been putting off this critical computer maintenance because you're not sure which files you need to backup?

At a minimum, you'll want to backup your "My Documents" folder.

If you're a smart cookie, you'll backup your Windows registry and your Windows profile. The Windows registry stores all the operating system settings and configuration options that control how the operating system loads and runs and interacts with various other software programs installed on your hard drive. Your Windows profile can be found in the C:\Documents and Settings\User Name folder. Backing up your Windows profile will preserve your "My Documents" folder, your internet favorites, your desktop and your email address book.

If you're really serious about protecting your data and system settings, you'll backup all user profiles and the system state.

What Do I Backup To?

You have a few choices here. You can use an online storage service like ibackup.com or evault.com. This will probably cost you a few dollars a month and there is an inherent risk in transmitting your data over the internet, but it's certainly better than not backing up at all.