Backing Up your Windows XP Data

What to Back Up

It is not necessary or desirable to back up your entire Windows XP hard drive. Windows XP 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\[ user name ]\My Documents\. You should save all of your files in subfolders of C:\Home\[ user name ]\My Documents\ .

Note: While all programs installed on the build will write to C:\Home\[ user name ]\My Documents\ by default, you should check C:\Home\[ user name ]\ in case you have accidentally saved files there. If so, we recommend that you move any files or folders in C:\Home\[ user name ]\ to C:\Home\[ user name ]\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\[ user name ]\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\[ user name ]\My Documents\Mail
If you prefer to backup your mailboxes, address book and preferences separately:
	mailboxes	C:\Home\[ user name ]\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\[ user name ]\My Documents\Mail.
	attachments	C:\Home\[ user name ]\My Documents\Mail\Attach\
	address book	C:\Home\[ user name ]\My Documents\Mail\NNdbase.txt
	preferences	C:\Home\[ user name ]\My Documents\Mail\Eudora.ini
WS_FTP Pro
	sites and preferences	C:\Home\[ user name ]\My Documents\Ws_FTP.ini
Netscape Browser 8.x
	bookmarks	C:\Home\[ user name ]\My Documents\Netscape\profile\bookmark.htm
	preferences	C:\Home\[ user name ]\My Documents\Netscape\profile\prefs.js
Firefox 1.5
	bookmarks	C:\Home\[ user name ]\My Documents\Firefox\profile\bookmarks.html
	preferences	C:\Home\[ user name ]\My Documents\Firefox\profile\prefs.js
Internet Explorer
	bookmarks	C:\Home\[ user name ]\My Documents\Favorites
MSOffice
	dictionary	C:\Documents and Settings\[ user name ]\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\[ user name ].

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

If you have other files to backup (e.g., MS Office Dictionary): 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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