How to set up your Hard Drive so that you can re-install or upgrade Windows without losing your data.

One of the most common jobs that I get called for in the residential sector is reinstalling an operating system. Over time, the registry gets all jumbled up and your computer starts to behave very poorly. Even worse, maybe you are running out of disk space and you go on a mission to free up some space... Oops, you deleted a critical Windows file.

I can say that by far, the most complicated part of a job like this is backing up your data before a reinstall. In my office, it's not a problem because I have the proper equipment, but a reinstall of the operating system wouldn't be all that difficult if you had a place to put your data while the hard drive is being reinstalled.

I've been using multiple partition strategies for years on my home computers. I set up 1 partition for the Operating System to live on, and 1 partition for all the personal files (email, documents, music). That way when it is time to reinstall the operating system, all I need to do is wipe the Windows Partition, reinstall and presto... all your files are still there.

I recommend that windows partition be at least 20GB these days. Windows is becoming more and more bloated and I've found that the old 8GB partition is no longer sufficient. However, with the low cost of hard drive space these days, you might as well just set up your windows partition to 1/4 of the disk.

How often do you backup?

Now here's a topic that until a few years ago, I totally disregarded, but as with just about anything, you don't realize how important it is until you need it. Then... It's too late. Fortunately, there is very good (and free) software that you can use to set up your backups automatically and you only need to do the work once.

First, you need to have either two computers or an external hard drive. Otherwise, what's the point! I suppose you could backup from one hard drive to another, but it's more effective if you backup to somewhere other than the computer.

The second thing you need to do is to download some free software. I use Synch Back. If you know of a free one that is better, then leave a comment.

All you need to do is set up a profile that backs up whatever directories are important to you. At least backup the "My Documents" directory, if you want, you can backup the whole C Drive.

You can set your profile to run once a week, once a day, or whatever you'd like. Set it up to run over night if you'd like.

This software is very useful because it will copy what it can. If there are files in use, it will skip them and continue. If you use the regular windows "copy" then it quits after an error occurs.

As you can see it is not that hard to get an automated backup setup and you will DEFINITELY thank me later! If you are looking for tech support in Moncton feel free to subscribe to this blog or leave me a comment.