I wonder if someone can help me? I have a dear friend who sets up stuff and sorts my probs for me as I am a complete klutz. He recently came and said that the back up exterior drive that I have has not been updated for a year. I really thought I was backing up with it but no. Anyway he gave me instructions and said I should back up at least once a month. I tried I really did. He is ill I cant call him about it and he is going to despise me (you probably do too)
But this is what he said to do:
Open My Computer>open D drive> make a new folder and name/ date it> go to C drive > Sara's docs> rt click >copy all> paste into new folder.
I get as far as Sara's docs but there is no place it says copy all.
I know it is me. Help please.Thanks all

To copy everything in a folder you could always press the 'Ctrl' and 'A' buttons at the same time. That will select everything in that folder. You can then right click in the folder you want to copy it all to (on your external hard drive) and select 'paste'. That should do it, although I think there are better ways to back up your system than copying your entire My Docs onto another drive.

Is there danger in going my computer/ highlight drive C/ go to the top menu bar, click edit and select copy/ highlight drive D/ go to the top menu bar, select edit, paste? That should make a duplication of C drive on D drive. Get a couple of flash drives (G & H) and through a USB port save to those drives if your external drive is full or not large enough. By setting up my 'save to' default to the external drive letter, all my 'saves' go automatically to an external flash drive. I then periodically do the 'copy drive' as outlined above (G to H).

Edit: The exact directions would of course depend on the version of Windows you are running. What I described should work for XP-Professional service Pak 3.

Thanks Lones I was thinking there must be a less complex way, I only need to update , really, I think.
Sorry mehaul I have no idea what you are talking about at all.

To copy a whole drive (back up your computer, not just documents which might miss photos) on the My Computer page, point and click once on the C drive image. It should turn darker blue (Highlighted). Next go up to the top of the page, second line down where it says "File Edit View Favorites..." click on Edit. Since you have an item highlighted, it will offer the option to 'Copy'. Click on copy and the contents of C drive will now be on your scratch pad (temp storage area) You can now put a copy wherever you want. Pointing at your D drive icon and single clicking should highlight it. Now go back up to the Edit in the second line down and select 'Paste'. Pasting puts what is on your scratch pad to whereever you have highlighted as a destination for it. What was on C drive should now be copied onto D drive. This is essentially how we used to make copies of our floppy discs.

It isn't usually necessary to back up your entire photo and documents folders if you do it on a monthly basis. This being because you'd probably only be backing up folders and subfolders that have already been backed up. Normally, it would only be necessary to add photos/documents/files to the back-up that have been saved to the computer during the past month. However, if it's been a year since any backing up was done, then it might be best to back up all created files on this occasion.

There is back-up software available for the job if you want to use it, including that within Windows itself. This can be set up to back up chosen folders automatically once a month (more often than that if you want). I've never used software for backing up though. I usually manually copy any files/folders to another drive in order to back them up. There are a few ways it can be done but perhaps the one described below would be the easiest. It will work with all files/folders (documents, music, photos, videos for instance). I'll use a photo folder as an example:

* Make a new folder on the external USB drive. Use the current date as a name for the folder.
* Go to the C: (main) drive and right-click on your photos folder and choose 'Copy' in the menu that opens. This will copy the folder and any sub-folders within it to that mystical area called 'The Clipboard'.
* Now go to the new folder that you created on the external USB drive.
* Right-click on the folder and choose 'Paste' in the menu that opens.
* The photos folder on the C: drive will start to copy into the new folder on the USB external drive (a progress bar appears that shows the files copying).
* When done, open the folder and the photo files should be visible there.

The best thing to do is experiment with some photos and folders that don't matter until you are comfortable about making the operation work as it should do.

No matter what you do, Windows keeps recently worked on documents on drive C anyway (I think it's around two dozen files per folder, but once you get to two dozen + 1, files are bumped out of the save area without telling you). Designating that external, flash stub or flash card, USB, D G or H drive as your default 'save to' drive makes that external copy automatically. That autosaving to the external is done when in your file document or image, you go to File/Save-to and designate that external drive as the save destination drive (This can be easily done: when you click 'save' for a file, doc or pix, in the pop up destination options window, point and click the upwards arrow near the top of that mini-window. This should show you a configuration tree of the hardware that is currently connected in your PC, point and double click the external drive, usually designated D G or H, that branch of the config tree should then show in the file name window near the bottom of the mini-window; then just point and click the save button). Your PC, in addition to making a save into recent documents on its own drive C, will from then on, copy the item into the external drive when you select save. See, saved in two places at once but with limitations from the C drive temp folders. Then once a month (or when you've saved an important document, copy that external drive completely to a second external drive (That is a real 'back-up' copy)

When you do a whole drive copy, the PC will inform you that files in those names already exist on the destination drive and inquire if you want to overwrite them. Answer yes and the copy proceeds. Answer no and you will then be asked to select the specific files you want to copy over.

Again this all depends on which version of Windows you are running.

PS I think the onboard software Windows uses to do back ups uses a partitioned section of the C drive for the back up if no external drive is connected or designated. So, in that case, if there is a loss of the PC, files are lost too.

There are many internet sites that automatically copy your files for you on a regularly scheduled basis and perform your back up operations without bothering you at all! You just have to go online frequently and pay a small fee. (I think even less than FT/mo and it works like Terry's daily sorting storing maint except in way less time.)

I use Dropbox to store my important files like the picture of the baby - works great and if something happens to my house/computer, they will still be there. (I'm also a bit OCD and regularly copy them onto DVDs and give them to the grandparents to use and keep safe for us.)

Thanks everyone. I feel that I can do this now thanks a lot.