Friend of the Blog MauserMedic asked for advice on backing up his hard drive last week. I’ve been meaning to write up a little guide but, well, I had a pretty rigorous drinking schedule over the weekend…

You can read a dozen different articles on backup strategies and you’ll get a dozen different versions of the “best” way to do it. Here’s my highly sophisticated method:

• Buy a big external hard drive and copy your personal data to it on a regular basis.

Alright, I guess I should expand on that a bit further. You really don’t need to back up EVERYTHING on your hard drive; you only have to worry about your personal files (your MP3s, pictures, emails, Word documents, etc.). Assuming you’re running Windows and you don’t save things in random locations all over the hard drive, you can just copy the entire C:\Documents and Settings\ folder to your external hard drive and you’re all set.

What about everything else? Well, that’s why you already have (or should have) CDs or DVDs to restore your operating system and programs. Your computer probably came with a set of “System Restore” discs that you can use to reinstall Windows and get running again after a hard drive crash. Then you just need to reinstall your programs and copy your personal data over from your external hard drive.

One potential snag: some new computers are coming with the “System Restore” stuff installed on a hidden partition of the hard drive instead of on disc. This is a profoundly stupid thing for manufacturers to do, in that it (A) wastes a big chunk of hard drive space and (B) destroys your ability to fix your computer after a hard drive failure.

The good news is, you should have a program somewhere on your PC that allows you to burn a set of “System Restore” discs with your CD/DVD burner. You might have to poke around on the manufacturer’s website or (horrors!) call their tech-support drones to find out how to do this, but you REALLY, REALLY want to either burn those discs yourself or get the manufacturer to send you a set.

Finally, there’s a whole bunch of backup programs you can buy to automate the backup process for you. I can’t recommend ANY of the ones I’ve used; caveat emptor.

So… that’s my take on backups. Just plug in your external drive, copy the whole Documents and Settings folder, paste it in the external drive, and have a few drinks while you wait for your computer to copy all your dirty pictures valuable documents to your backup drive.