Ok… I bought a memory stick on Ebay which had huge memory (forget what) but when I tried to backup on it, it said there was not enough memory (and I’ve now ‘misplaced’ the memory stick).
I just tried backing up again using CD’s but again it didn’t work. Is there a special sort of CD I should be using? First it said that Windows couldn’t format the CD then it said Windows encountered and error.
I am now thinking that maybe I should buy and external hard-drive. I have looked on Amazon and they range hugely from £20 to hundred. One at around £60 has good reviews… BUT none of them actually say TO BACKUP WINDOWS 7.
How do I know what to buy???
Could some kind tech person please advise me on what I should buy? I have found the bit on my laptop that does the backup but I’m stumped at what I should buy and am afaid of crashing and losing everything.
I have an HP Pavilion g6 laptop with 4G memory (I think).
Think what jellybean has said - what do you actually want to do?
Backup and restore software is often a touch complicated to use.
Maybe what you really want is to clone your hard disk to another one so that if something goes wrong you can clone it back again.
Maybe all you want to do is to copy all ypur personal file, pictures, and stuff.
The answer depends on what you actually want to achieve. Making backups of personal files can be as simple as writing them onto CDs/DVDs and you need enough to get the job done. To clone a hard disk onto another, the second one needs to be the same size.
I am not at all computer savvy, but the back up I use is an external hard drive, by (ClickFree), it is just that, it comes with a USB cable, plug one end into the Clickfree drive the other end into a USB socket on your computer, that’s it, all your data is backed up, when done just unplug.
The first time you back up may take some time, depending on the amount of data on your drive, but after that it is just a few minutes as it only backs up what has been added or changed. It even puts a reminder to back up on your screen, you choose when this will happen, one day, one week, one month, its up to you.
Note there is no software to install on your computer, it is held on the Clickfree drive.
It is very simple, if I can do it, it must be simple.
For Clicfree, just google, or visit QVC TV shopping channel, it is one of their regular products, advantage of buying from them, if you don’t like it or don’t get on with it, you can return within 30 days for a full refund.
I should have made myself clearer. Yes I think it’s a clone of the hard-drive that I want. A few people have told me you must do this with Windows 7 as you don’t get the discs to restore Windows like you used to… so I think it’s the external hard-drive I need.
I was under impression that it could be backed-up on discs or memory stick but see now I was wrong. I do back-up my own documents and photos etc on memory stick.
Jellybean, one thing I don’t understand is, if the pc has a built-in backup and restore, if your pc has crashed, how could you use the backup and restore? It is surely stuck in the crashed pc. Does that make sense? It seems to me that it would have to be on something external (as with the old Windows restore discs).
Chris…The Clickfree sounds great and just what I need. I will look into it. Thanks.
Just had to do this myself and had the same prob you did. Ended up just creating a system repair disc which I hope will solve and restore in event of a crash. Nearly same route to get to system back up but dont use the option to back up on that page in the left hand menu you have three options second one is create a system repair disc. Had no problem creating a CD on that option.
Route on computer is conrol panel - system security - back up and restore, but use the left hand menu option.