"Dear Tom,
When you worked on my computer (remotely) on March 15, I had you back up my "My Documents" from the "C" drive to my External "F" drive.
My "F" drive now has an entry entitled "My documents backed up on
3-15-2010". I need to do that periodically.
I'm embarrassed to say, I can't remember how you did that, and I can't figure it out by myself. Is that something you can briefly explain to me? Thanks."
Answer:
Not too briefly! :-)
Be sure your external drive is attached to your PC & powered on.
Click on Start and then My Computer (or just Computer in Windows 7).
Double click on the icon shown for your external drive.
Click on File, then New, then Folder
Immediately key in "My Documents backed up on 6-14-2010" and hit Enter
This should have created a new folder with that name. Look on the right half of the screen and you should see the new folder you just created. It is probably at the bottom of the list. Okay? Good, skip the next step. If not, do you see a folder named New Folder? If you do, be sure it is empty and then right click on it and select Delete.
Repeat the above two steps until you get it. Many users do not pay attention to the word "Immediately" above. All I am stressing is that you should key in the name of the new folder WITHOUT hitting your Enter key first!
Okay, you now have the new folder within which you will be backing up your My Documents folder.
Now, within the same window, scroll up to the top and on the left side of the screen you should see your My Documents folder. Yes? Good go to next step. No? Bad! Try again, restarting by closing the window and right-clicking on Start and select Explore.
Do you now see My Documents at the top of the left side of the screen? If not, I must have messed up. Please write me again and tell me where you are in the above steps.
Okay, when you see your My Documents folder displayed, click on it once and then on the right side of the screen you will see all of the contents of your My Documents folder. You will likely see many folders you should recognize and below them, perhaps, some stragglers - files that probably belong in one of your folders.
Click on Edit and then Select All, and all of the folders and files on display on the right side of the screen, the contents of My Documents, should be selected and highlighted (in dark blue on my PC).
Click on Edit again, and this time select COPY TO FOLDER.
In the next window that pops up, scroll down until you see your external drive, expand it if necessary (by clicking on the + sign to the left of the drive designation letter, and below it you will see (among others) the new folder you created. Select the new folder, clicking on it once, and click on OK down below.
This should start the copy of your My Documents to the new backup folder.
When done, compare the contents to make sure that everything was copied successfully.
As I write this I am on a W7 machine, so there may be some slight difference if you are on XP or Vista, but the general procedure is the same. Write me if any problems, pcdoc at brpcdoc dot com.
I received this e-mail the next day (6/15/2010)
"Dear Tom,
Thank you so much. I followed the instructions on the blog and
everything went very well. I am now in the
regular-backing-up-business. I had been getting so nervous because I
had not been backing up my C drive"
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