Backing Up your Windows 2000 Data

What to Back Up

It is not necessary or desirable to back up your entire Windows 2000 hard drive. Windows 2000 itself and any applications you use can be re-installed should your hard drive fail. But it is necessary to back up your personal files, including email and bookmarks.

Backing up your personal files is easiest if you try to keep all the files you create in one location. By default the programs that came installed on your computer save documents to C:\Home\Main\My Documents\. You should save all of your files in subfolders of C:\Home\Main\My Documents\ .

Note: While all programs installed on the build will write to C:\Home\Main\My Documents\ by default, you should check C:\Home\Main\ in case you have accidentally saved files there. If so, we recommend that you move any files or folders in C:\Home\Main\ to C:\Home\Main\My Documents\ before backing up.

You'll also need to backup up your email, bookmark and preferences files. See the table below for some default locations of these files.

Tip: If you back up everything in the folder C:\Home\Main\My Documents\, you will automatically back up your Eudora Pro mailboxes, address book and preferences, Netscape bookmarks and preferences and your WS_FTP Pro sites and preferences.

Eudora Pro
	all user files	C:\Home\Main\My Documents\Mail
If you prefer to backup your mailboxes, address book and preferences separately:
	mailboxes	C:\Home\Main\My Documents\Mail\*.mbx Note: You'll need to backup each of your mailbox files, eg, In.mbx, Out.mbx, and any other mailboxes you've created. Just be sure to back-up all *.mbx files in C:\Home\Main\My Documents\Mail.
	attachments	C:\Home\Main\My Documents\Mail\Attach\
	address book	C:\Home\Main\My Documents\Mail\NNdbase.txt
	preferences	C:\Home\Main\My Documents\Mail\Eudora.ini
WS_FTP Pro
	sites and preferences	C:\Home\Main\My Documents\Ws_FTP.ini
Netscape Communicator 4.x
	bookmarks	C:\Home\Main\My Documents\Netscape\bookmark.htm
	preferences	C:\Home\Main\My Documents\Netscape\prefs.js
Netscape Communicator 7.x
	bookmarks	C:\Home\Main\My Documents\Netscape\usrpriv\xxxxxxx.slt\bookmarks.html where xxxxxxx.slt refers to the folder in the usrpriv folder whose name will vary, but will end with .slt
	preferences	C:\Home\Main\My Documents\Netscape\usrpriv\xxxxxxx.slt\prefs.js where xxxxxxx.slt refers to the folder in the usrpriv folder whose name will vary, but will end with .slt
Internet Explorer
	bookmarks	C:\Documents and Settings\usrpriv\Favorites (older Win2000 builds) OR C:\Home\Main\My Documents\Favorites (newer Win2000 builds) Contact the Help Desk at 2755 or help@allegheny.edu if you need assistance determining where your Favorites are stored.
MSOffice
	dictionary	C:\Documents and Settings\usrpriv\Application Data\Microsoft\Proof\Custom.dic

 

There may be other files you wish to back up, depending on what programs you use and where these programs save data.

How to Back up

To back up your files, use WS_FTP Pro to connect to your account.

In the left (Local System) window of WS_FTP, double-click once on the green arrow to move to the directory C:\Home\Main.

Click once on the My Documents folder, and click the right pointing arrow.

Click Yes in the dialog box that opens. This confirms that you want to back up the highlighted files and folders.

If you have other files to backup (e.g., Internet Explorer bookmarks): In the left (Local System) window of WS_FTP, browse to the location of each file or directory you wish to back up. Once you find a file or directory to be backed up, click on it once to highlight it, and then click the right pointing arrow to send a copy to your account.

When you have backed up all the necessary files, close the connection, and click Exit.

To learn how to restore your data from a backup, see this tutorial.

 

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