OT: Confessions of a computer repairman

[John Williamson]

As others have said, set up a D: drive for your data, and tell Windows to put the "My Documents" folder on it. I also use a little program called SynchronX, which is free and can be used to keep any pair of folders in sync by copying the later versions of files to the other folder. The backup folder can be on a USB stick or even on another computer on the same network. The only gotcha is that both file systems need to be the same, as the file alteration times and dates are stored differently on NTFS and FAT, which can cause problems with recently updated files. If you use Outlook, then you need to install the pfbackup program from MS, and tell it to store the backup somewhere off the C: drive, or you will lose all your data from Outlook. It's a sod to restore, too, IIRC.

If you need to keep data on an XP computer, then it can pay to back up the "Documents and settings" folder first as it keeps all sorts of usefult stuff in there.

[alexander.keys1]

OK, thanks for that, so the D: drive is a partition on the hard disc, not a seperate physical drive?

What about Mozilla Firefox, which is the main thing I use the PC for, how do you get to keep it and all the WWW bookmarks?

[Mike Clarke]

Like most software, the program will have to be re-installed after re-installing Windows but you can keep your bookmarks, history, stored passwords etc. by backing up your profile. Google for backup firefox for lots of links to instructions on hoe to do it.

[Rob Morley]

Except it was there all along:

• Hot-Kit shuffle - pinching internal expensive parts,

[The Natural Philosopher]

could be either..

ah.. there's generally a directory somewhere buried under your personal data.

[Jules Richardson]

Run windows in a VM under a different OS with just the Windows-specific apps that you need installed into the Windows VM image (do everything else via the 'different' OS). Keep the data under the 'different' OS. Reinstalling Windows is then as simple as restoring your last VM backup.

(I do this with Linux and Win2k running in the VM, but lots of other combinations are possible)

cheers

Jules

[Owain]

I don't know, but Opera lets you store your bookmarks online and synchronise it between different PCs.

Owain

[John Williamson]

On this laptop, yes. On the Asus EEEPC, it's a 32 Gig SD card. On the tower, it's a 500Gig SATA drive.

Install MozBackup (Free from the Mozilla website), use it to backup your FF profiles, and tell it to put the restore files in your Documents folder or on a USB stick. Do the same for Thunderbird, and when you reinstall all three programs, just restore the profiles. That worked for me yesterday when I accidentally installed Thunderbird 3.1. It took about ten minutes to be back exactly where I'd been before the finger trouble.

[Gib Bogle]

After reading this far, I thought of suggesting that you check for software upgrades. I then saw that this is what you did next. I was having blue-screen problems with my recently-purchased ASUS m/b Windows 7 machine. After some screwing around swapping memory sticks between slots, like you I went online and found the latest software for the m/b, video card and a couple of other things. I'm pretty sure it was the ASUS m/b ROM upgrade that fixed it.

[Mike Barnes]

alexander.keys1 :

It: download it again (but you knew that).

Bookmarks: there's a menu item to export them to a file which you should back up periodically. But better, back up the "profiles" folder (in Documents and Settings), so that your settings and add-ons are saved as well. Google for instructions.

[Tim Watts]

So does Firefox.

[Adrian Brentnall]

- funny how it's always the last thing you think of that fixes it! Should have thought 'video drivers' sooner - but, in my defence, when the problem started the ATI upgrade wasn't available (dated February, I think).

All looking good so far...... (icebergs - what icebergs?!)

Thanks Adrian

[dennis]

I helped someone fix a driver problem on a brand new PC world machine. His accounts package would crash until I updated the driver that was preinstalled.

Fine you think..

two days later he says its broken again.

It turns out that he decided the machine was faulty when he bought it and had taken it back and complained until they exchanged it for a new one.. complete with the duff driver!!

[stuart noble]

Why don't people seek advice *before* they go to the bloody shop?

[Mark]

I'd say a lot more than a day's work.

[Huge]

I run Ubuntu Linux on the host and XP in a VM (along with Solaris, Win7 and Plan9 in other VMs). I tried to install the latest Ubuntu, too, so I could confirm I'm going to hate the new UI, but it complained about the virtualised graphics hardware being inadequate. That's as good a reason to hate it as any...

[Huge]

There's a Microsoft Powertoy (called "SyncToy") that does this, also.

[Mark]

[Mark]

But it won't move all data there. Application data may still be stored in the old location.

[John Williamson]

Yerss, I've tried it. It leaves junk all over the place. Specifically, it leaves a file in each folder which is claimed to speed up the process. It also has trouble if you want to keep three folders in Sync, whereas SynchronX lets you pick two of the three, synchronise them, pick another pair from the three, and a final pass just to be sure with the original pair. SyncToy doesn't like doing that, it gets confused.

It lasted all of two attempts on this machine.