Backing Up Documents: Protecting your Data and Retrieving Lost Data

Saving frequently and backing up files takes almost no time at all once you're accustomed to the ritual. Compare this to the hours of wasted time when an important electronic file is gone for good. The four steps to safeguard your data are:

1. Save your file every 5-10 minutes.

2. Keep multiple copies of your file.

3. Backup those files to alternate disks.

 

4. Avoid floppies, which fail frequently. Use zip disks, flash drives, CDRoms or e-mail it to yourself.

Frequent Saves

Saving work at regular intervals is an important step to reducing potential losses of time and effort. A good rule of thumb is to save work every couple of paragraphs or every 5-10 minutes. Make it a habit of saving your documents before leaving your computer or turning your attention to something else: checking e-mail, playing with the cat, etc.

Keep Multiple Copies of Your Important Files

Keeping multiple copies of a document can also help limit the damage when a file goes bad. Saving the same document under several filenames as you work on your document gives you several files to access if your main file goes bad. The older files may not be complete but you may avoid a total loss of data. Maintaining multiple copies also insures that if you want to go back a few modifications, you'll be able to.

It is easy to store your document under a different name as you save it. Select Save As... from the File menu saving the file with a different name. Saving your document with a filename that includes the time you saved it can also be helpful.

Backing Up is Easy to Do

Frequent saves and maintaining multiple copies are a good start, but you need to do more with your important documents. The most important safeguards are backups. A backup is an additional copy of your file saved on a zip, flash drive or CDRom. Another good way to backup files is to send them to attach them in an email to yourself so it can be accessed from anywhere.

Backing Up and Retrieving

If you encounter problems with your computer, you probably have files you don't want to lose, and should make copies of them immediately. All of your text files and pictures will probably fit on one or two blank CDs. Just burn the files you need backed up onto those CDs and then save the files onto the repaired computer. If you aren’t sure how to burn CDs or what program to use, check the documentation that came with your computer or call the Help Desk at x2007.

If your computer does not boot, you won’t be able to back up the files yourself. If there is a specific text file that you need to complete an assignment etc, the Help Desk may be able to find those specific files, if they’re not corrupted, and put them onto your zip, flash drive, CDRom or we can e-mail it to you.

Running CheckDisk

CheckDisk is a utility that scans your system files for corrupt data and can be used in lieu of reformatting a computer. If your machine still boots you can run the checkdisk utility from Windows: double-click on My Computer and right-click on Local Disk to get to Properties. Click on the Tools tab and then press the button labelled Check Now. The scan cannot run during windows, but if you check the two checkboxes for automatically fix errors and scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors, when you click start it will ask you to restart. Select Yes and the scan will run upon restart.

If your computer will not boot, or you are getting a blue screen error, insert your original Windows operating system CD into the drive and reboot if the machine is on. When it says “press any key to boot from cd,” do so. After this, press R to run the Repair Console. This should eventually load a black DOS screen. Type “chkdsk” to run the checkdisk utility which fix any of the missing or corrupt system files, though it takes two to three hours to complete and tends to seem like it freezes at 65%.

If you have any questions or problems, please call x2100 (for faculty) or x2007 (for students).

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Last Modified: 08/16/2006