if you were wiping your hard drive, what to backup?

[Julie Billingsley]

I got a yucky malware on one of my computers that I just can't get rid of, plus I wasn't happy with some of the slowdowns that I was having, sooo I'm wiping the hard drive. I'm scared that I'm missing backing up something, so what would you back up if you were in that situation?

I have photos, bookmarks, scrapbook files, documents, and my brushes for photoshop. But I can't think of anything else. Any suggestions?

[Joana1n]

email address book
photoshop actions
fonts

[crystalbird]

Do you use iTunes or ACDSee? I think those were the things I almost forgot when moving from one computer to another. And with iTunes, one time I just moved the entire folder and lost all my playlists - the next time I was smarter and used their export or backup feature (I don't remember exactly what it was called :)) to back up and re-import and it worked great.

[kaylaugh]

Do you use iTunes or ACDSee? I think those were the things I almost forgot when moving from one computer to another.

I was going to suggest ACDSee too. If you use ACDSee Photo Manager or Pro, go to Database>Back-up Database and follow the wizard. Put the backup someplace safe on another drive or burn to CD and include the thumbnails if you have offline media tagged (photo disks, etc.) Also, when you restore everything, make sure the folder and file names are all the exact same as before including the drive letter where your supplies are located. If you have a newer version and can embed your tagging info, that's great too! Embedding does not work for all file types though so I would do both the embedding and the backup.

HTH!
Kristi

[Julie Billingsley]

great suggestions so far! I do use ACDSee, but only as my file viewer and I don't have a database. However I did need to backup the porgram itself because it was a downloaded program. Whew! Thanks for that reminder! Also, thanks for the reminder on my actions because I make a lot of my own actions and those definately needed to be backed up. And my fonts! Yikes that would have been bad to forget that! And iTunes... need to do that now!

[kaylaugh]

glad I could help. don't forget to save your product registration key too! it's in the help menu...'my ACD' or 'about ACDSee' or something like that (depending on your version)

(And get the keys to all of your other downloaded software while you're at it!)

Kristi

[Julie Billingsley]

glad I could help. don't forget to save your product registration key too! it's in the help menu...'my ACD' or 'about ACDSee' or something like that (depending on your version)

(And get the keys to all of your other downloaded software while you're at it!)

Kristi

I see where to enter a new license code, but haven't found where my current license code is. I have ACDSee 10.

NEVERMIND... LOL, it's under the "about" section of the help file. :) Thanks!!

[kaylaugh]

I have a CD burned with all the downloaded installer files plus a notebad .txt file of product keys for all of my software. I burn a new version once or twice a year to reflect updates/upgrades and new software purchases/downloads. It's part of my regular backup routine. I go ahead and include database backups too (which are also backed up quarterly on CD and monthly on EHD and IHD for months not covered in the bigger backups.) I've been playing with tagging in Windows Live Photo Gallery but there doesn't appear to be a way to embed or backup the info so it doesn't fit my particular level of paranoia...lol! :)

Kristi

[Darcy Baldwin]

Bookmarks...Be sure to export your bookmarks to a safe spot, just in case.

FF (http://www.ehow.com/how_1000389_export-save-bookmarks.html)
IE (http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-vista/Import-or-export-favorites-in-Internet-Explorer)
Chrome (http://www.google.com/support/chrome/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=96816)

[Chantal Miller]

anything not unzipped yet aswell.