If at all possible, could you please tell me step by step how to move all my files to an external drive, and how to retrieve them to reinstall them later? I’m really not comfortable doing things on the computer, always afraid I’m going to mess something up.

Moving files to an external drive or USB flash drive, is easy and necessary when buying a new computer or reformatting your hard drive. You can do this by using Windows Explorer and dragging and dropping your files to the external drive or using the “Send to” option.

Hooking up the External Drive

First, you must have an external drive or USB flash drive attached to your computer with sufficient storage capacity. These usually connect to a USB port. Follow all manufacturer installation instructions.

Launching Windows Explorer

Windows Explorer represents the contents of your computer and any attached storage devices by listing the different drives, folders, and files. There are several ways to launch Windows  Explorer. The easiest way is to right-click the Start button and choose Explore.

Dragging and Dropping Files to an External Hard Drive

If you want to use the drag and drop technique, open a second instance of Windows Explorer and make sure that both of the windows show up on the screen. Try to place them side by side. In the left side window of Windows Explorer, click on your computer’s hard drive (usually the C: drive); in the right side window, click on the external hard drive (this will be a higher letter such as the E, F, G, H, or even F drive. The external drive may be identified with a label that says, “external storage device” or something similar.

Once you have the windows lined up, you can then go to the C: drive and drag and drop entire folders to the external drive. The dragging and dropping process involves clicking on the folder (such as My Documents) and keeping the mouse button depressed while you drag the folder across the screen to the external hard drive’s screen. Once you reach the drive, release the mouse button to release the folder. You’ll see a visually display on the screen showing files being moved from one folder to the next. Depending on the size and number of files, this could take a while to complete.

Note that you can use the Control button while clicking folders to select multiple copies.

Using the “Send to” Option

If you don’t like the idea of using two windows and dragging and dropping, you can use the “Send to” option to send your folders to an alternate location such as the external hard drive. Open Windows Explorer by right-clicking Start and choosing Explore. Click on the C: drive to see its list of folders. Find the folder that you want to send to the external hard drive and right-click it. Choose Send to and then find the hard drive in the display that appears.

Which Files to Copy

We’re primarily concerned with copying data files, not system or program files. While My Documents is fairly obvious, you likely have other locations where data files are stored. Make sure to consider all possible folders where you may be storing data. It’s helpful to make a checklist of all of your most important file types and then mark them off the list as you go. Your list might look something like this:

• My Documents
• Microsoft Money data
• Photos of kids
• Recipes
• E-mail messages
• E-mail contact lists
• Tax records

Reinstalling Data Files

Once your computer is restored or you’ve purchased a new computer, getting the files off of the external drive uses the same process, only in reverse. Simply open Windows Explorer, select the folders that you want to copy and drag and drop or choose “Send to.”

I use a number of flash drives to carry important data with me. Is there backup software that treats my USB flash drive as the primary source and backs it up to a hard drive? This needs to work with multiple USB flash drives. Thanks!

Backing Up USB Flash Drive

Software to Back Up USB Flash Drive

I’m not sure that I completely understand your question, but it seems to me that you are looking for software to move the contents of your USB flash drives to hard drives, rather than moving the data manually.

Moving Data to and from a USB Flash Drive

USB flash drives are really easy to use, and even manually it would be straightforward to plug in your USB flash drive, click the icon to open it, then highlight all the contents and drag and drop them on your desktop. From there you can open files or drag and drop again to various folders on the C: drive.

Install an Operating System on a USB Flash Drive

If this isn’t the information that you are after, then perhaps you are interested in storing an operating system on a USB flash drive. As far as “treating your USB flash drive as the primary source” I assume you mean that you would like to boot from the flash drive, the way that you most often boot from the hard drive.

Adjust your BIOS to Boot from the USB Flash Drive

While this is not exceedingly common, it is certainly possible. If you store an operating system on your USB flash drive, then you can adjust your BIOS settings to boot from the USB drive. Before the computer accesses any drive or program it runs a series of processes called POST that are programmed in to the motherboard and allow the computer to self start and check its own settings. This process cannot be duplicated by any drive or program, so in this sense your computer’s motherboard will always be the “primary source”. Once completed, however, you can adjust your BIOS settings to boot from any drive that you want, presumably one with an operating system. You can save your operating system to a CD and boot from there, the way you perform repairs and reinstallations with the Windows installation disk. Or you can install an operating system on a UBS drive and boot from there.

Windows Sync Center

If you have Windows Vista, try the Sync Center which is located in the Control Panel. You can use this utility to set up mobile devices to sync with your hard drive. With the USB drive connected to your computer, go into the Sync Center and set up a new sync partnership. Once set up, your computer and flash drive will synchronize when connected. Changes to files will be coordinated between the hard drive and flash drive. Not all devices are compatible with Sync Center, so this may or may not be an option.

My Recovery D disk: I’m still getting the balloon that says I’m out of space. I have cleaned out the disks, emptied the recycle bin, defragmented and so on with no luck. There was an automatic backup program that ran once a week. I disabled that and am still getting the notice.

Recovery Disk D: Out of Space Error

No Space on Recovery Disk D:

OK - the Recovery D: disk on your computer hosts a small file created by the company that manufactured your computer. Rather than go to the expense of including a Windows Operating System CD with each and every computer it makes, most major manufacturers create and include a System Restore drive on the computer instead. If you need or want to run a System Restore, you can access the D: drive when you boot up your computer. However, if you experience a fatal error or major system crash you might not even be able to boot your computer, so you won’t be able to access the D: drive.

About the D: Drive

The D: drive is actually quite small. The System Restore file is the only thing that belongs here. However, it seems as though your back up files are being saved to your D: drive by default. Since your back up copies can’t be saved to the same drive that the operating system is on the back up is often set to D:. If there are other files saved to the D: drive it will quickly fill up and result in this error.

Save your Back Up files to a Removable Device

For this reason, Microsoft and your computer manufacturer suggest that you save the contents of the D: drive off of your computer. Once you save the Recovery file you can remove the D: drive altogether if you want to, although you don’t need to. To clear up the problem open the D: drive and delete the files you no longer need. You should also reset your back up program to save to an external hard drive, a 4 or 8 GB USB flash drive, a CD or DVD.

Resolve the Error Message

There is actually no real problem with the error message - the D: drive doesn’t need to have empty space since you shouldn’t be saving anything here, but you will experience problems with any programs that are trying to save this drive and the constant pop-up error message is annoying. Clear out the drive and save the Recovery file to disk and you should be working well again soon.

How can I install a backup copy that I stored in a 16GB flash drive to a laptop?

Restoring Files from a USB Flash Drive

Using files and accessing folders that are stored on USB flash drives is usually a breeze and the flash drive technology makes it easy and convenient to use USB drives to move files, folders and programs between computers. To open the drive and find your files, take the flash drive and insert it into a USB port on the side of your laptop. Assuming the laptop is reasonably modern and is fitted with USB ports, the USB drive will slide in easily.

Opening and Saving Files and Programs from USB Drives

Once you have the program or file open on your desktop, you can move it onto the computer by dragging it and dumping it in the location where you would like to save it. If you want to access files from a program that you have saved on the USB drive and not on the computer, you can run the program from the USB drive, but it will make changes on the computer’s registry and might leave behind traces of the program.

Accessing Stored Files from USB drives

Give the laptop a minute to load the data on the drive, depending on the amount of information that you have stored, and the types of programs or documents, they could load immediately, or require a few seconds. The USB drive will show up on your desktop as an icon. To access your files, click twice on the icon to display the contents of the drive, and then you can easily select the files and folders that you want.

Consider Using a USB Device Manager Application

If you are storing a lot of information, or several types of program files on your USB flash drive, you might want to consider using a flash drive manager program. Microsoft makes a program called USB Flash Drive Manager that provides a user-friendly interface with which to restore all the data that you have saved to USB flash drives. Microsoft USB Flash Drive Manager also allows users to label and categorize their files and folders to personalize them and make information easy to find and move. The Microsoft USB program is available for use on Windows XP and newer operating systems only and can be downloaded from Microsoft here.

Finding files on your new hard drive

There are a few ways that we can come at this question, we can look for the files individually, or we can open the program that was used to create them and see if they are easier to locate that way. Beginning with looking for the individual files, the search techniques are different for different operating systems, so let’s go through the XP steps first, and then we’ll look at Vista.

Finding files and folders in XP

To search for a file of folder in Windows XP, take the following steps:

1. Open the Start Menu and then select Search
2. When the Search Companion dialog box opens, choose All Files and Folders
3. Now you can enter the information that you are looking for. You can enter the names of the files, if you know them, or enter the extension and look for the specific files you want in the search results.
4. The Look In box lets you choose where on your computer to search, in this case, since you aren’t sure where you are looking, you should choose the c: drive or the entire computer.
5. You will be offered three search criteria: When Was it Modified, What Size is it, More Advanced Options, if any of these fields are helpful, provide more information.
6. Select Search

Finding files and folders in Vista

Since the search procedure has changed on Windows Vista, many users report problems finding files and folders. On the Vista system there are different ways to look for your data, but the best place to start is with the Search box. There is a Search box on the top of every open folder. Let’s begin by looking for your jpegs.

1. Open your My Pictures folder, which you can find in the Start Menu on the upper right hand side. It will be listed with My Documents and My Music
2. Inside the pictures folder, open the Search box in the top right hand corner.
3. The Search box can find files by file name, text inside the file, common properties, and tags. In your case, you likely want to search either by the kind of file - Pictures - or by the file type or extension - jpeg. For a file extension search it is most useful to put an asterisks before the extension - *.jpeg

All your jpegs should be offered in a list of search results. You can then follow the same steps to open your spreadsheets, but make sure you close your pictures folder and search for the spreadsheet in My Documents, or by extension, if you know it.

Search for files by program

Another way to get to your files is to open the programs that were used to make them. Open the Start Menu and, from the bottom of the list, select All Programs. Find the program that you used to make the files, for example, Quattro for your spreadsheets. Click twice on the file to open it and then see if you can open the documents from there.

Seek remote technical assistance

Without knowing more about how you transferred the contents of your old hard drive on to your new system, it is difficult to give more specific advice. If these steps don’t help you find your missing files, you might want to consider getting remote assistance. A technician can ask you questions and find out how you moved your data and what operating system you use, which will help determine the exact steps to find your files. At Filetonic, we recommend the services that are available through this link www.filetonic.com/support

FTP

FTP stands for file transfer protocol, which allows you to upload files to your website from your desktop. Internet Explorer has FTP capabilities and because it is on most computers, you can use it in a pinch to upload files from virtually anywhere.

Using IE to Upload FTP

You need to get your upload server address, your user name and password from your webhost or ISP provider. Your upload server address will look something like this: ftp://ftp.yourhost.com/.

At the IE address bar type in ftp://uploadserveraddress/. It will probably look like this: ftp://ftp.yourhost.com/. A screen will then pop up that will ask you for your username and password. Type these in. Internet Explorer will look a lot like a file on your computer. You can now drag and drop files from your desktop to this window and they will be uploaded to your website. You can download files by dragging them from IE to your desktop. You can also use the right click method to copy and paste if you prefer, but most people like the ease and convenience of drag and drop. When you’re in the IE window, right click to create folders on your server just like you do on your desktop. You can also delete FTP files on your site by selecting the file and pressing the Delete key.

Troubleshooting IE

If something goes wrong, when you’re in IE, click on Tools, then Internet Options, then Advanced. Make sure that “Enable folder view for FTP sites” is on.

Use IE for Quick Jobs

While it’s easy to use and readily available, using IE this way is best left for small amounts of data because it can hang on large files. It also runs slower then most other dedicated FTP clients.

As you can see, once you know the correct address as well as your username and password, nothing could be easier than uploading and opening files on IE. For updating your website on the go, it’s probably the most convenient method.

Software for FTP FIle Transfer

You can also use FTP software such as CuteFTP from GlobalScape. These products make FTP file transfers a snap. Simply drag and drop in a user-friendly interface.