Information On How To Backup Windows XP!

How do you backup your data on a Windows XP?

Your approach to backup Windows XP is different depending on if it is Windows XP Professional or Windows XP Home Edition you are using.

Backup for Windows XP Professional

There are three steps you first have to do to when you use the standard Microsoft operating system software for Windows XP backup. And that is to ensure it to be secure by backing up Windows XP at the time you start to be working with a new Windows XP Professional computer.

1. Make a backup of your system with Automated System Recovery!
2. Make emergency startup disc for your system!
3. Do A Total Backup of your hard disc!

Step One: Start the Automated System Recovery Wizard. Do this from accessories click on System Tools and Backup.

When the Wizard starts click on advanced mode the wizard will now start. On the welcome tab, click on the tab next to automated system recovery wizard. The Windows XP backups for professional are by default for tape backup if this is available. But there are also other possible destinations for the backup, to other hard disc or to writeable CD-ROM.

The backup is for all your system essential information, like registration keys system set-ups. It doesn't backup up your other data files you work with, like Office programs.

Step Two: You will be asked to put in an empty formatted floppy disc. After it is filled with recovery files you are done.

Now you are able to do a recovery of your system from scratch with the system settings you have saved on the backup. This is now a quick process to recover the system if by accident you have had a fatal hard disc failure.

Step Three: Use the Backup wizard again. Look at the Welcome Tab. On the Welcome Tab there are four tabs: "Backup Wizard" "Restore Wizard" "Emergency Repair Disk" "Automated system recovery".

The interface is easy to use but basic. You can select which files you want to backup. You can select the whole hard disc.

Next step is to choose which medium you backup up to. Normally this is to a tape. You can save to backup as a .BKF file to another hard disc. Other possibilities are CD-ROM or DVD drives.

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In the MS Windows XP Home Edition the process of backup XP is a little different because you can not make an automated system recovery and an emergency disc.

1. Make a Restore point of your system
2. Manually install the backup utility
3. Backup your hard drive.

Step One: Create A Restore Point

In order to store Windows XP data you have to create a Restore Point go to System restore in the System Tools. Click on "Create a Restore Point" and click on next. Fill a name for the Restore Point. This is useful if you make a system or registry change and want to be able to go back to your previous settings. A restore point is the minimal amount of files on your system that you need to have for the system to work properly.

You can store restore points and save it as a snapshot of the system. You can have several restore points saved from different configurations of your system.

Note: A restore point is made by default after you have installed the Windows XP Home Edition on your computer. Also, every time you make new settings, a new restore point is made. This can be new hardware or when new applications are installed with new system settings.

Step Two: The Windows backup utility is not included in the installation of Windows XP Home Edition. However it is included in the Windows XP Home edition installation CD. You just have to find the backup program and install it.

Install it from the CD at drive:\VALUEADD\MSFTN\NTBACKUP

This will start the Windows backup Utility Installation Wizard for Windows XP. When it is finished "Click finish" and the backup utility is installed.

Step three: Do the backup by going to the backup utility the same way as for Windows XP professional. The only difference is that the Automated System Recovery wizard will not work with the Home Edition. Despite that it will be included if you install XP backup Utility.

So the process for backing up XP, restoring the full system and backup data from a fatal system failure in the Windows XP Home Edition is more complicated.

First you have to install the system with your installation CD-ROM. Next you have to install the backup Utility from the installation CD-ROM before you can restore the XP backup.

You can not use a system recovery diskette and do a fast installation as you can do with the Windows XP Professional.

However you can make a hard disk image so you do not need the XP backup utility for Windows to backup and restore your Windows XP system.