...and the third option is a (zip drive?)...zip something...
No! Don't waste your money! Nobody on earth uses Zip drives anymore (or ever did, for that matter)! You'd be lucky if you could find zip disks! Plus, CDs/DVDs are cheaper and last longer than zip disks too.
Do you use ERUNT for your registry backup?
Actually, I don't really make registry backups, but if I did, that is probably what I would use. It seems to be the fad reg backup utility on the CCleaner forum, so why not?
What does ROFL mean?
Rolling On the Floor Laughing. Stupid internet acronym. Kind of like a more intense LOL.
Is Vista a 64-bit or 32-bit platform? Or something else? It sounds like a waste of money.
Yes. It will come out in both flavors, but I doubt that MS will support 32-bit architecture for too much longer.
I absolutely loath MS AntiSpyware Beta, as it started turning on startup processes that I had purposefully turned off (such as the Quicktime one that serves no purpose). It stayed on my system for a grand total of 2 hours; I'm surprised that I even let it last that long. I just found out that it is integrated into Windows Vista too (it's called Defender), so that royally sucks. Of course, I'm not buying into Vista anyway, so I guess it doesn't really matter.
I haven't used MS Antivirus, but I imagine it is about the same level of "quality". ROFL.
Are you sure it has to be an external HD? Couldn't you just have a secondary internal HD? That would be more convenient, as it wouldn't take up any more space, and it would cost far less. Externals are terribly overpriced. If it has to be an external, my suggestion is to make your own. You'll save anywhere from $50-over $100 doing that!
It is pretty easy to do; all you've got to do is buy an internal drive, and then get an enclosure that fits that size of drive. For a desktop, the drive is 3.5" and for a notebook it is 2.5", or (rarely) 1.8". There is only two cables to hook up (power and data), so anyone can do it, and save a ton of dough in the process.
I can understand not using an external HD if you don't have one, but why on earth would you use floppies?!! You could've bought a cheap CD burner for the price of 40 floppies! And since a single CD can hold the same as over 500 floppies, well, you get the idea.
That is the most feasible suggestion I have; either purchase a CD burner or even better, a DVD burner (they can burn CDs too). The media is cheap and readily available, plus 5.25" disks will last far longer than any floppy ever could.
As far as backup software goes, I can't really help you there, as I do all of my backups manually. I have nearly everything saved under My Documents, so all I really have to do is break those files up amongst several DVDs, and viola, backup complete!
I just got someone in the family who was a bit techy to install an old hard drive inside my pc, just to use as a back up drive. I then use an MSDOS batch file I wrote to 'xcopy' any files in certain specified folders that are new or modified. It's then just a simple (?) matter of putting a shortcut on the desktop and disciplining yourself to 'click' on it before you turn the pc off. Works fine for me!
Nobody on earth uses Zip drives anymore (or ever did, for that matter)! You'd be lucky if you could find zip disks! Plus, CDs/DVDs are cheaper and last longer than zip disks too.
I remember back in the day when a 100MB Zip disk was what I made system backups on, back when I didn't know what a CD writer drive was, and before I had an Internet connection and didn't have any downloaded software or know anything about ripping audio CDs. I also remember when I got excited that Iomega was releasing a 250MB version (the dumb-ole days). I actually still occassionally use my old click of death Iomega Zip 100 drive on my Win98 system only as a secondary backup for some programs and security settings, etc., just in case. They can still be found in some stores albeit collecting a bunch of dust as a pack of Fuji's are in my local Staples store I swear they've been there for five years and haven't ever moved. They're available mostly online or in office/computer mail order catalogs however they're a complete waste of money when compared to a run of the mill generic CD-RW that can hold allot more data, also they're very slow to write data onto.
Heh, yeah, Zip drives were really something when they came out, but they didn't really take off as far as I can see. But you (Andavari) did make me think of another option that I hadn't mentioned previously; USB Flash ROM drives. They are fast, easy to use, hold a lot of information, and considering their abilities and size, are relatively cheap.
I just recently bought a 2 GB Flash ROM drive, and to me it is indispensible (not to mention it's a whole lot bigger than my 256 MB one that I had before). To get a 512 MB stick (about 2/3 of a CD-R), expect to pay around $30 or so. But it will pay for itself quickly.
Flash drives have some benefits over CDs, DVDs, hard disks, and of course, Zip drives. Since the drive uses Flash ROM, you can rewrite it infinitely; you can do that with the other media listed, but rewritable CDs and DVDs tend to degrade fairly quickly. And a feature that a Flash drive has, which no other other mentioned backup devies have, is the fact that it has no moving parts. Moving parts produce friction and heat, which wears away at the device with time. Obviously, when parts wear out or loosen, failures are bound to occur, and data is bound to be lost. You end up with fried hard disks, scratched 5.25" disks, and... well Zip disks suck, so we won't even go there. And if you are worried about compatibility in the future, Flash drives use a USB port; USB is here to stay (for a while, anyway), so you'll still be able to use it in 5-10 years with no problems.
Flash drives will basically last forever, and even if they get scratched or thrown, they'll still be okay. Just don't abuse it, and it will always work.