Backup

External USB hard drive: Full system backup and data transport

Skyrocketing storage capacity of computers makes backing up difficult. Saving individual files is fine, just copy important stuff to disk. Burn CDs and frisbee them (gently) towards your fireproof safe. Ninety percent of the time, swell. But the other ten percent is critical. If you perform certain upgrades or need to reload your computer, get […]

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How do I transfer files from one computer to another?

Tom asks: “What’s the best method to get the info from an old laptop (A) to a new laptop (B), where laptop (B) has no floppy drive, only a CD drive. How do I connect the one PC to another and direct transfer the files?” There are two ways to approach this question. If you […]

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Recovering data from corrupted files in OpenOffice documents

So you’ve been using OpenOffice.org and you have a corrupted file in programs like Base, Calc, Draw, Impress, Math or Writer. You might see scary error messages like these: Read-Error. Format Error discovered in the file in sub-document styles.xml at 2,2568(row,col) The file ‘file.odt’ is corrupt and therefore cannot be opened. Should OpenOffice.org repair the file? […]

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What is the i386 folder? What is the Windows folder?

Ella asks: The eclean software has a selection for finding duplicate files so you can delete one to save space. However, I haven’t been able to find out which ones of the duplicates can be deleted. For example, the file may beC:\i386\abcd and the duplicate may be C:\windows\i386\abcd. Both have the same bytes and date. So […]

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Help, I’ve deleted and I don’t back up! How to recover deleted files

Today is Opposite Day. Instead of saving important programs, we’re deleting them. Your spreadsheet with tax information is gone. The photo archive from the New Year’s Eve party is toast. There goes the document you’ve been typing for the last few days. All our important files, mercilessly flushed down an uncaring electronic drain. There’s a […]

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