Unable to find backup files?

goorange2008 wrote:
> I own a Gateway laptop and had to perform a full system recovery. I
> chose the option that does a system recovery with a backup. Now that
> it's all done, I see the folder in the C drive called "My Backup --
> 17-11-07 1825" but I can't locate any of my documents (word, excel
> docs), music, or pictures. Is there something I don't know? I have
> reinstalled Office already, I'm just looking for my lost docs? All I
> can find in this folder are the sample pictures and music that come
> with Windows? I'm a Syracuse student and there are some documents
> that I would like to have back! Thanks.

Do you know for a fact your data files were backed up, or was it just the
system files? Sounds like it was just system files (Windows files and
programs). If whatever you used to create the backup won't show you your
data files in its Restore menu, then it's highly likely they were not backed
up. And thus are lost, unless you copied them to some other place that
still exists such as floppy, CD, DVD, tape, internet, etc..

For the future, the step you missed was testing the backup after it was
created, to see that you could recover what was important to you. Don't
feel bad; most newbies skip that step the first time but they remember it
after losing everything once.

It's also very bad form to keep a backup on the computer's hard drive,
especially the system boot drive. They should either be on an external
drive or failing that burned to DVDs or CDs.

I know money's tight in school but external USB hard drives are pretty cheap
these days and can save the day for things like this. The external drive
should be at least as big as the hard drive or, failing that, at least twice
the size of the data on the hard drive that you want to back up. 80 Gig
drives are pretty cheap these days.

Unfortunately yes, it sounds like there is quite a bit you aren't aware of
w/r to backups and data safety.

HTH,

Pop`