Creating and Restoring Backups in Windows 7



Making backups

You need to find someplace to back up data, preferably a removable media device such as an optical drive or a tape drive, or an external hard drive. You can also save to a network location, in the event your network has a dedicated backup server or an NAS device. To make a backup, follow these steps:

1. Click on Start button from the Taskbar and then Control Panel and then System and Maintenance and then click on Backup and Restore Center.

2. Decide whether you want to back up the entire computer (which will take up a lot of space) or only your important and unrecoverable files, and then click the appropriate button.

3. Select a location to save your backup files. Use the wizard to choose a removable media device (such as a DVD+/-RW drive) or a network location.

4. Click Next. If you chose to back up the entire computer, one more screen appears to confirm the backup.

5. Click Start Backup to proceed.

If you chose to back up files, Windows will ask you to fill in check boxes for each file type you want to back up. You can then schedule regular backups and start the backup.

Restoring your data

You can restore individual files or your entire computer, if you have backed up your entire computer in the past. Restoring your data is as simple as backing it up.

Click on Start button from the Taskbar and then Control Panel and then System and Maintenance and then click on Backup and Restore Center. In the bottom half of the window, choose whether to restore the entire computer or only files and click the appropriate button. You will rarely need to restore an entire system unless the hard drive completely gave out.