Hi Vic,
Thank you so much for writing back. I got home from work late and had to walk our 3 dogs, and I have no great love for Norton, so it can go. It's funny that you said something about the latest version of CCleaner, I had just done the update before I ran the registry checker. Norton is no longer having a problem, but my computer just isn't running right. I will do a back up and clean install, but I have a question. A year or so ago I had some malware and when I finally got rid of it, it took with it some of the components to different things on the pc that I would like back, such as the fax monitor on my windows fax, and my networking sector is missing some stuff, to name a couple. The last time I did a back up I used Nero and sent everything to an external hard drive. When I installed everything back, I installed the messed up items along with what I wanted. Maybe I don't really understand how to back up just the programs that I want. I also lost all my email from Outlook 2007, I don't want that to happen again because I store important veterinary correspondence there. I know you all are busy solving problems, but could you recommend a good informative site to tell me how to back up, so that I don't create a nightmare for myself? There must be a file somewhere with all the EULA agreements in it because I lost a lot of software that I had to dig out and redo, but the worst part of that was losing what I had stored in particular programs, for instance, all my recent papers done for my second trip back through college. Thank you again for your time and help.
Cindy
I don't mind helping when I can, and I also do this as a job so I have set up a ton of links on my site just for this stuff, like direct links for the service packs to knock out the updates faster. I will probably create a new page with the info below and possibly more detail later, but for now if you have any more questions, post back here. And if you really get in trouble, my phone and email are listed on my site. The links from my site mostly point to MajorGeeks.com and CNet / Download.com, with a few others, and some of the files I host myself.
For the backups I LOVE a little program called Cobian Backup. This is an excellent full featured backup program and it is FREE.
By default Cobian Backup is set to NOT compress anything. Meaning that you can simply browse through the files you backed up (but you can use compression if you have to). There are a few settings I change in the Options in Cobian Backup - Under "Visuals" check the boxes for "Show percent in the progress bars" and probably the "Show grid" and Un-check the "Show welcome screen". Under "Functionality" Un-check" the "Confirm running tasks manually". Under "Engine" you may want the "Use several methods for copy" - I would NOT use the "Copy NTFS permissions" to avoid any password or permission problems when you go to copy your data back. For the initial "Full" backup when you are creating a new task, Un-check the "Create separated backups using timestamps", but once you are back up with your clean install you may well want to use this and have multiple full copies of your data.
Now on to the backup(s). I am going to base this as if you have plenty of space and that you do not have any malware on your system now. I will try to give the same info for both XP or Vista. Very few programs can just simply be transferred so those will have to be reinstalled separately, and you will want to make note of any serial numbers you need and settings you have changed, for example your email.
1. Backup the entire Documents and Settings for XP and Users for Vista - I always get this and not just the current user files just in case. This will get all of your documents, downloads, music etc.. Also your Outlook .pst file(s), Firefox profiles, and many other settings.
2. You may have some programs that have saved data in their own program folders instead of a folder or file in the "My Documents" or "Users" folders. You will have to determine where the data lives. Just to be on the safe side I would backup the program folders of anything to do with money such as TaxCut, Turbo Tax, Money, or Quicken, and any of the family tree type of programs. All of these programs, if they are current versions, save their data the "right" way but if you are using an old enough version or have upgraded for years, Quicken is one that may have saved the data in the program folder. If you have the space you can simply back it all up, and sort it out later.
3. Any folders or files you may have saved in "C:" or whatever root directory Windows is installed on.
4. Use a free program called Double Driver to backup the drivers you are using now. This is not a fool-proof way to get your hardware working again after the clean install, but it will probably get most of what you want.
5. Use Belarc Advisor to get a lot of the info about your system and print it out. This will get you a lot of your serial numbers and info about your hardware.
When backing up using Cobian Backup, you will see the log file having some errors about not being able to backup some files. There are going to be some that are "in use" and not able to backup, but I have not seen any that were needed later. Usually they are files like NTUser.dat and other NT files. These are reinstalled by default by Windows. You will want to scan the logs to double check to see if there is anything that would not copy and that you really do want. If there are some, make sure you do not have them open, in fact make sure you have as few items open as possible.
After the backup -
If you get the option, I usually recommend creating multiple partitions or using multiple hard drives. This way you can install Windows on the first partition and then put your data on the second. Once you get Windows installed you can right click on "My Computer" choose properties and then "move" your "My Documents" to the other location. I do NOT recommend moving the location to an external hard drive, because if that drive loses power Windows will freak out (I know that's kinda technical...). The reason for installing this way, is that if Windows gets messed up, you can reinstall without having to do anything with your data since it is not in the same partition.
Links -
Backup utilities -
https://www.viclovan.com/downloads2new.htm#Backup
After the Windows reinstall -
https://www.viclovan.com/how_to.htm