Need Help Backing Up Computer Stuff on Portable HD

Okay guys, my computer’s been a little ‘off’ lately (I’m not going to get into it, it’s 5 years old), and I was trying to use a portable HD (250 gig capacity) to backup all of my important stuff (lotta image files, music, and, importantly, video. Anyway, I have more than enough space on the portable HD device, but I keep encountering files that the computer is telling me there isn’t enough space for them (when I clearly have well over 200+ gigs free!).

I’ve already cleared the recycle bin several times,… am I missing something totally obvious here? I figured I would just drag and drop all the files I need and then go to bed, but this is turning into a real mess -lol.

Thanks!

S

Format the external drive and start over.

Defrag might help, could be corrupt files. Then do what he said.

Yeah my first thought was it wasn’t formatted, try that and report back.

The other thing to check is if the external hard drive is formatted using FAT32 or NTFS. If you have the choice NTFS is the better option, assuming you have Windoze

[quote]BigDug wrote:
The other thing to check is if the external hard drive is formatted using FAT32 or NTFS. If you have the choice NTFS is the better option, assuming you have Windoze[/quote]

Indeed, x2.

Can you use some compression software (like Stuffit) to zip some of the larger less used files?

1st are you sure you were getting copies going to the right location.
2nd are you sure its not the external giving you that msg and not internal drive
3rd if you have filled the external then get another drive.
4th Look for stuff like hidden directories you might of copied by mistake and remove them. There are options to show hidden files and directories …google it if your not sure what I am talking about.

Okay, so I copied what was previously on my external drive to the desktop, reformated the external drive, and then copied everything onto the drive (yay! -lol). Now I just need to reset my computer to it’s original settings to hopefully eliminate all the lag and BS that it’s been doing with more and more frequency lately. I still have the old XP CD, so I figure I’ll just toss that in and let the computer ‘do it’s thing’. The only part I’m not looking forward to is reinstalling all the software I’ve accumulated over the years. I have this one software (it’s not a common one, so I doubt I can find it anywhere) that I haven’t bothered to update the last few times, and I know they won’t give me a reinstall of the older version :frowning:

I guess this is just part of owning a computer eh… I miss doing everything with papers and pencils…

S

This may be a basic question, but how would I go about saving my bookmarks in Firefox? Can I just send them as an email attachment to myself or something?

(Thanks for the help guys, nothing like a little computer problem to make me feel like an old man at 36)

S

I told you stu,

all that damn porn was going to catch up with you.

mofo’s got like GIGS and GIGS of the shit. it’s insane.

[quote]The Mighty Stu wrote:
This may be a basic question, but how would I go about saving my bookmarks in Firefox? Can I just send them as an email attachment to myself or something?

(Thanks for the help guys, nothing like a little computer problem to make me feel like an old man at 36)

S
[/quote]

http://www.ehow.com/how_4473381_transfer-firefox-bookmarks-new-pc.html

That site is very helpful, thanks for posting it up. A quick question though,… I’m trying to reinstall Windows from my old XP disc that came with the system, and when I go through the motions, I get a prompt asking me which partition to install windows in.

The options are ‘Partition 1 (EISA Utilities)’ and ‘Partition 2 (Unknown)’. I don’t want to just guess which one sounds like the right one -lol. Thoughts?

S

[quote]The Mighty Stu wrote:
I don’t want to just guess which one sounds like the right one -lol. Thoughts?

S
[/quote]

Stu, to be honest, thats how I deal with 69% of my computer problems and it turns out alright.

[quote]The Mighty Stu wrote:
That site is very helpful, thanks for posting it up. A quick question though,… I’m trying to reinstall Windows from my old XP disc that came with the system, and when I go through the motions, I get a prompt asking me which partition to install windows in.

The options are ‘Partition 1 (EISA Utilities)’ and ‘Partition 2 (Unknown)’. I don’t want to just guess which one sounds like the right one -lol. Thoughts?

S
[/quote]

The EISA partition is basically a rollback partition, it’s used as a fail safe if you need to rollback to factory defaults. Which I suppose in this case you might actually want to consider using.
(personally I’m no fan of factory defualts and all the shit they put on your computer for no reason, so I would just delete that partition anyways)

Partition 2 is what you’re going to want to reformat/reinstall windows on if you don’t use the EISA partition to recover your computer.

[quote]The Mighty Stu wrote:
That site is very helpful, thanks for posting it up. A quick question though,… I’m trying to reinstall Windows from my old XP disc that came with the system, and when I go through the motions, I get a prompt asking me which partition to install windows in.

The options are ‘Partition 1 (EISA Utilities)’ and ‘Partition 2 (Unknown)’. I don’t want to just guess which one sounds like the right one -lol. Thoughts?

S
[/quote]

Is your XP a full disc or it it just a back up disc that came with the computer? If its just a back up disc make sure you fallow the directions when you get ready to install it. If its a full XP disc kill the hard drive and to a total install. When running the back up disc it will not fix everything if there are major problems on that hard drive it will just set it up for running xp but it can miss problems with the win32 files that is a major problem.

Firefox has a ton of programs you can use for your bookmarks. I use foxmark all my bookmarks are saved on a server and I can log into it where ever I am and go to the sites.