Backing up files & settings

My old computer crashed. I got the most critical stuff copied before it completely died, but I've learned my lesson: BACK UP!

Got the new one with Windows XP. Right now I'm just copying my picture & text files to CD whenever I add or change something. I'd like to find out how to backup all my settings, my saved emails (Incredimail), etc. There's a backup program on this computer, but there are a couple problems. And when I looked it up in the Help menu, it didn't tell me a damn thing.

1: It doesn't give me the option to back up to CD. I can use floppies (got a separate drive), but seems it would take forever & a ton of disks. When I experimented with starting a backup to floppy, the little box on the screen started calculating file size & estimated time. It was up to 20-some hours when I cancelled.

2: If I have to choose which individual files to copy in order to keep the amount of data within the limits of individual CDs or floppies, I just don't know for sure which ones are the critical ones to copy in certain cases--like my internet browser bookmarks, for example.

Any words of wisdom for me, techies? Thanks.

 

If you're really serious about backup, go get yourself an external USB hard drive. You can backup over and over again. CD's are really more for archiving.

Documents (unless you moved them):
C:\Documents and Settings\<user name>\My Documents
Internet Explorer Favorites:
C:\Documents and Settings\<user name>\Favorites

Don't know where incredimail stuff is. I wouldn't touch that crap with a 39.5 pole.

 

Thanks math I'm not serious enough to spend that much right now, but that's what I needed to know. I do have a lot of stuff it would break my heart to lose.

 

You can periodically backup to CD, knowing that you'll start accumulating CD's. You can pat yourself on the back for just thinking about backup, 'cause most people don't.