I am trying unsuccessfully to back up everything on my computer because I want to do a registry cleanup. I want to burn it on to some CD's but my stupid computer wants to save everything on floppies. It will take a truckload of floppies and two days to do this! No matter what I do I can't seen to get it to change from the 'A' drive to my 'E' drive. It keeps on telling me that the the drive is invalid or that I don't have the authority. Stupid computer!!! As far as I know I am logged in as 'Administrator'.
Can anyone please tell me where to kick my computer and persuade it to backup everything on a CD. I also tried to back up everything on my hard drive (the preferred way) but it will not let me do that either.
I have a new rescue disk completed just in case.

 

Are you using the built-in backup software in Windows? I think in some versions of Windows it only lets you choose a floppy drive, and there's nothing you can do about it other than upgrade to a different Windows version or use different backup software. Or, you can simply copy the files you want to keep, 650 mb at a time, to CDs. Mostly not very good options.

 

I think Jim is right on with his advice, sounds like the "floppy" drive is the default drive for the backup software you are using. Try a different program to do your backups with.

As a bonus I am going to give you this URL for one of the MOST useful sites on the net... The List Of Lists! Great resource for programs that will fill all your needs

http://lists.gpick.com/index.html

 

Yes, that's what I am using. I also tried to back up just the system state but that also insists I use floppies. That alone will take hours and a few boxes of floppies.
There must be better way to back up my stuff before I do the registry cleanup. Or do I just do the cleanup and keep my fingers crossed and if everything crashed, use the rescue disk?
I have a registry cleanup program and it has found a LOT of stuff that needs to be cleaned up. Hopefully that will restore some of my former speed.

 

Thanks Lary. Will play with that list just as soon as I have some time.

 

What version of Windows are you using? If you have at least 98/ME, one option is a USB hard drive that would allow you simply to copy all the files as a backup--nothing sophisticated, but easy and reliable. Another option would be to buy a second internal hard drive and do the same thing, although that choice is a bit more involved installation-wise.

I do my system state backups from XP onto a shared drive on my print server.