I recently bought an external, portable hard-drive to use partly for backup, partly for mobility. It connects to the usb and I can copy files & folders back & forth, no problem. Some of the files contain confidential data. If the drive was lost or stolen it might be embarrasing. What are the best ways of protecting the data on an external drive?
I am working with a PC that has account and password issues so the user is blocked from accessing his files. I have tried Orphcrack on the system but it's not showing any passwords. The user tells me the system has been acting odd for some time now and - of course - he does not have a backup and to make it worse his tax information is on the system so he had to file an extension to get time for me to do this recovery and restore. I need to pull his files from the system to wipe, perform a clean install, setup his account and restore his files.
I have two user accounts on my computer. My administrator account that I very rarely ever use, and my normal, general user account I named "Bob1". I use Vista Windows Mail as my email application. I just searched and found the "hidden" folder where my Windows Mail stuff is (C:UsersBob1AppDataLocalMicrosoftWindows Mail Local Folders & Microsoft Communities & Compact & Backup) I save everything to my Bob1 user account to the appropriate folder (Documents in documents folder, pictures into pictures folder, etc.) I never vary from this habit.
I have been backing up using Vista32 backup. It gives me the option to backup "Pictures, Music, Videos, E-mail, Document, TV-shows, Compressed files, Additional files". I check all of these options so all are backed up. It comes on automatically every day to backup anything new or changed.
I checked the restore part of vista32 backup & restore found in control panel. I looked up Bob1 and all my folders are there. It appeared the application data folders were there (difficult to find because the application data folders are hidden). I specifically checked the Windows Mail folders in the hidden application data folders and they were there. It appeasers everything is backed up.........
I have been successfully backing-up to my Freecom hard drive classic 3.5 500GB via Windows Live however the drive keeps on filling up rather than overwriting/updating the current data, which is what I'd assumed was supposed to happen. Is this how it goes or have I missed something? The only option I have is to delete the current data and start again every month which is a bit of a pain!
I want to know where Windows Mail stores the e-mails I have received. I would like to set up .PST data files (like the old outlook) on an external drive but have no clue.
I would like to password protect a couple of folders I have but in searching Vista Help am not finding a way to do this. Is there a way to password protect certain file folders in Vista Home Premium?
I recently rebuilt my machine (see system specs) and when I went to pop in my old HDD as a secondary drive to pull some files from it, Windows decided it needed to run chkdsk on it. I tried to stop it, as this is a 500GB drive so I knew it would take forever, but I couldn't stop it. So after a few hours, it finished and let me in, but now all of the files are missing. This was my old C: (primary) drive, so it should have Windows, Users, Program Data, etc folders but it doesn't. it just has a few empty folders (Nvidia, Intel...) However when you check the properties of the disk, it shows that several GB's are used, so I know my data is around there somewhere. Changing the folder options to view hidden does not help. The OS on this disk was Vista Ultimate 32-bit.
I may have to re-install the Vista operating system on my primary hard drive. According to Dell, installing/re-installing Vista will erase any existing files (gee, why couldn't they have configured Vista like XP which would save your data?).So as not to loose my files, my plan is to install a new primary hard drive. And once the new drive is functioning properly, to add the old one as a data only secondary drive (The drive hasn't failed, it's just inaccessable due to a user logon password issue which I'm working in another thread). Does anyone see a problem with reading the data files/folders on the old drive? Will the existance of an operating system be a problem? I'm hoping the drive will act as a ghosted drive, and the answer will be no.
Windows Explorer in XP was a clumsy way to write data files to CD/DVDs. Is W.E. in Vista any better regarding this? If not, can you recommend free programs for writing data to DVDs?
Ever since I received my new (refurbished) laptop, I have had the message of "insufficient storage available. cannot backup files." Further, my computer has always run slower than any other computer I have used. I get the message "low disc space..running out of disc space" often. (Dell has been no help whatsoever, and at this point, I am out of warranty.)
To try to resolve my problem I have compressed the drive 'to save space' which gave me 231 mb of space. Certainly not enough to run any backups. I have defragmented and get the message that it does not have to be defragmented at this time.................
I had made a format for my computer and i followed all the instructions and i made backup for my files and everything (the users files ) and when i tryed to reput them on my computer it didnt open i tryed to use easy transfar and restore back up but it didnt work so if anyone can help me i will be greatfull to all
BTW the folders name on the flash disk is (MINWINPC) but their is no nmae on the files or exetentions .
I started a backup on my computer but then it stopped because i didn't have enough space. I found the files and deleted them because it was slowing down my computer. After I did this, I read something that said don't delete backup files because it could potentially create problems with the backup and restore process in the future. Does anyone know how i can find out if I deleted an important file/files?
I recently backed up my files to the Recovery D drive (Back up and Restore center). It failed as I did not have enough memory to complete the op. I've since uninstalled programs that I do not normall use, but still only have 20MB free out of the 10GB drive. I'm trying to go into the user files to delete folders which contain pictures that I want to delete to free up room. BUt when I click on the folder and try to delete it, I get an error message indicating that I do not have enough memory to complete the operation. So how do I delete these folders (that contain a ton of pics)?
I deleted my pictures several days ago and did not note that it occurred. Also missing are my favorites and contacts. I am wondering if I can upload these folders from my back up disk. Rather than loading all of the disk, it would be a selective choice;
Suddenly, my computer freezed (just like it has been doing for some time now). When I restarted it, the computer asked for the Vista DVD, so that it could repair some files (I couldn't even boot into Safe Mode). I put the DVD inside the drive, and choose the "Repair your computer" option, but it reports that no Vista installation is found...
I then boot into the Rescue and Recovery environment (that is a Thinkpad suite, located in another partition of the disk) to see what's going on. The System Information detects everything except the Hard Drive (it reports "Not Available" for the fields "Hard disk free space" and "Hard disk capacity"). I also can't see the harddisk in the option to backup the files to a pen (the pen is recognized, though). Just to be sure, I run PC Doctor and my hard disk passes all tests.
I've been faithfully backing up my C: to another internal hard disk on a weekly basis for over a year now. I just received an error message telling me that my E: is full, so the most recent backup was unable to be completed. How do I delete old backup files - is it as simple as deleting the particular backup folder and subfolders? Also, can you recommend any strategy on which backups to delete and which ones to keep? I'm running Vista Home Premium, using Backup & Restore Center utility for the weekly backups.
I've been trying to back up my laptop since I bought it last year, but the first time I did it, it said "backup failed" (I didn't look at why, just gave up) and since then, every week when it does its sad little attempt to back up, it says "last backup failed".
I finally decided to give it another crack tonight, but when I looked at the D drive, it said that I only had 1.28GB free of just over 5GB. I looked in the file to see if there was anything I could get rid of so I could start from scratch, but apparently there's nothing in there apart from the little RECOVERY file (87kb) which it says I shouldn't touch, so I'm not going to!
I am completely computer deficient and I have no idea about anything! I'd be really grateful if someone could give me a clue (in Vista Backup for Dummies terms) as to what's happening here and how I can FINALLY back up my laptop, and maybe even begin to love it like I should!!
A PC had Vista installed and one folder was encrypted by OS. This folder had some thousand or so files. Then Vista was reinstalled, with most old system files (including "Windows", "Users" and "Documents" folders) deleted before reinstallation. Encrypted folder left intact on HDD. Is it possible to get files from encrypted folder somehow decrypted under newly installed copy of Windows? Username and password for Windows account used to encrypt folder are known. Utilities like Elsomsoft's EFS recovery could not do much - when account password have been supplied utility said that it can decrypt about 90 files in total with no hint on why specifically these files can be decrypted and not others.
We recently had a need to replace a hard disk. Our original files were all backed up with Windows Vista Backup. The backup process produced no errors and appeared to complete successfully. However, when we restored the backup to the new hard drive, we found that there were many missing files. To this point, it appears that the missing files are all .EXE files. In many cases, all the files were restored to a folder, except for the executable (.exe). We know that these files existed when the Windows Vista Backup was performed on the original hard disk. Moreover, we backuped the same files later using a different program and have confirmed the files were there.
Is anyone aware of a problem where Windows Vista Backup is either NOT backing up all the files or is NOT restoring all the files? Furthermore, it is odd that this seems to have affected only certain files which brings us to wonder if our security software could have blocked files somehow without our knowledge
Using the automated Vista files backup I am getting very large backups - 50Gb - weekly. It should only be backing up new files and files that have changed. Why is it backing up files that have not changed for years? I have seen several other posts on discussion forums but no explanation or solution. I am running Vista Ultimate 32-bit and am up-to-date on hotfixes.
I used the "Backup" component (Start>Accessories>System Tools>Backup Status and Configuration) of Vista Basic to backup my hard drive to an external drive in case I had a faliure on my HDD. Well, I had to restore the factory settings on my machine and now I want to restore the files I backed up. My external HDD is FAT32 and the system is telling me it can't use a target that isn't formatted NTFS. I have files that will be impossible to replace in this backup copy on my external drive but I don't know how to get to them. Does anyone have a work around for this?
Vista backup and restore is setup to automatically create a backup every Friday night at 9:00 PM to an external disk. After a month I no longer need some of the older backup files so I deleted two via windows explorer because there is no way that I've found to delete old backup files using the backup and restore center. Now when I go into the restore files (advanced) screen that list the available backup files on my external disk, I see the two backup files I deleted. The question I have is, what needs to be done so that Vista backup and restore does not list backup files that have been deleted?
I've been running Backups regularly using the Control Panel, Backup and Restore Center. I've recently noticed however that my movie files weren't being backed up. The file type is '. MOD' saved by Panasonic camcorders. The 'video' and 'additional files' boxes are checked in the settings dialog. I spotted the problem after adding loads of movies to the computer and noticing the backup didn't need a new DVD (previous one nearly full) then I checked the backup files and '.MOI' files were copied from the folders but not the '.MOD' files. Is there any way of getting the backup utility to recognise these files?
I want to backup my microsoft windows Vista Home Premium 64bit updated files so i can install them back later after recovery for the same computer and OS ? updating files size= 500mb
1. Avira AntiVir Personal - This antivirus application can do wonders in removing viruses and protecting your computer. It has heuristic detection which stands out amongst free antivirus packages and from my personal experience it works well with Windows Vista. Oh and did I mention it doesn't eat up much resources? (Scan once a day)
2. Malware Bytes AntiMalware - This baby is free, reliable and updated every 10 minutes, well maybe not 10 minutes but it is updated at least more than twice a day from my experience. This supplements Avira by removing items that are not detected by Avira. Now, no trojan, virus worm or whatever malicious software will ever cause great damage to your system (Scan once every three days)
3. Last but not least, Windows' default firewall will do the trick. Let's face it, we don't want anything complicated controlling our internet traffic. I mean most of us these days are behind a router which has a built in firewall already. I honestly even didn't run my firewall with xp and was fine with it
ON SUNDAY MARCH 2ND I DECIDED TO REINSTALL VISTA HOME PREMIUM BECAUSE ICOULDN'T GET WINDOWS MEDIA CENTER TO WORK. AFTERWARDS, WHEN I PLUGGED INMY SEAGATE EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE AND TRIED TO USE THE BACKUP WIZARD I SAW THIS MESSAGE: -"THE DISK CONTAINING THE BACKUP IS NOT ACCESSIBLE. PLEASE MAKE SURE IT IS TURNED ON AND CONNECTED TO THE COMPUTER." -I PANICKED AT FIRST BECAUSE I THOUGHT THIS MEANT THAT I WOULD NOT BE ABLE TO ACCESS THE FILES ON MY SEAGATE, BUT I REMEMBERED THAT I COULD GO THE LONG WAY BY GOING THROUGH WINDOWS EXPLORER AND CLICKING ON FOLDER AFTER FOLDER AFTER FOLDER, ETC. I WOULD RATHER NOT HAVE TO DO THIS, ESPECIALLY SINCE ALL I'M LOOKING FOR IS JUST-ONE -FOLDER!
my c drive it says i have 1% left ! i have used disk cleanup and defag but it didn't help ,plus i remove programe ,cookies and temp internet, can i do a recovery using my backup files? i only had this computer for one year
I'm having issues with various programs on my 32 bit Home Premium Vista OS. It seems like a virus to me. When I try and open EXPLORER the infamous CLASS NOT REGISTERED error shows up. For many other applications I get the "WININET.dll NOT FOUND" error. I have tried REGISTRY MECHANIC and also tried to do a STARTUP REPAIR using the VISTA DVD. The Startup Repair utility does not seem to find any problems when I run it at startup.
I wanted to get opinions if all this was leading to a clean install or a repair install of Vista. I'm not sure if I have SP1 or SP2. I can't seem to get to any program that would give me that info because of aforementioned errors.Also if it is a clean install that I need to do, can I save my documents and music somehow first? Any ideas? Is it possible to use DOS Command Shell and try the COPY command to copy these folders to my portable hard drive, which is L: drive on my computer. I do have a few programs that run without the errors. One is Mozilla Firefox. I can see all my important files by typing "C:" in the Firefox browser (for eg. "//c:/Users/admin/Music"). Any way to copy them to "L:"? Or any way to back them up before OS installation?