How to Back Up Files and Folders in Windows XP Home Edition

Usually we do not see the importance of doing backups until something happened to our data. By then it may be too late. To help you protect your data if your hard disk fails or if you accidentally delete files, you can use the Windows XP Backup Utility to backup your data. Although the Backup Utility is included in the Windows XP Home Edition CD, it is not installed by default. Which means that the Backup icon is not present on the Start menu in Windows XP Home Edition. To use Backup, you must install the utility manually from the Windows XP Home Edition CD.

To manually install Backup:

1. Double-click the Ntbackup.msi file in the following location on the Windows XP Home Edition CD-ROM to start a wizard that installs Backup:
   CD-ROM Drive:\Valueadd\MSFT\ntbackup


2. When the wizard is complete, click Finish.

How to Back Up Files and Folders

After you install the Backup utility from the CD, complete the following procedure to create a backup of your files and folders.

1. Click Start, point to All Programs, point to Accessories, point to System Tools, and then click Backup.
2. After the Backup or Restore Wizard starts, click Advanced Mode




3. Click the Backup tab.




4. Click New on the Job menu.
5. Select the check boxes next to the drives that you want to back up.
   If you want to select specific files or folders, expand the drive on which these files or folders are located, and then click the check boxes next to the files or folders that you want to back up.




6. Click to select the System State check box that is located under My Computer in the left pane.
7. In the Backup destination list, click the backup destination that you want to use.
8. If you clicked File in the previous step, type the full path and file name to which you want to back up data in the Backup media or file name box.
9. Click Start Backup.
10. Under If the media already contains backups, perform one of the following steps:
    • If you want to append this backup file to previous backup files, click Append this backup to the media.
    • If you want to overwrite previous backup files with this backup file, click Replace the data on the media with this backup.
11. Click Advanced.
12. Click to select the Verify data after backup check box.
13. In the Backup Type box, click the type of backup that you want to create. You can select any of the following backup types:
    • Normal
    • Copy
    • Differential
    • Incremental
    • Daily
    When you click a backup type, a description of that backup type appears under "Description."
14. Click OK, and then click Start Backup.
15. When the backup is complete, click Close.

NOTE:

• In the Windows XP Home Edition, the Automated System Recovery (ASR) is not a supported feature. ASR functionality will appear to work fine during the backup session. Since the setup does not support ASR in the home edition, there is no way to initiate the ASR restore in case of a disaster. If you need to restore from this session, install Windows XP manually and then restore from the ASR media. For more information on this, refer to the Microsoft Knowledge Base article 302700


• If you decide to backup to a CDRW, you cannot target that device directly. You must create a backup set of 650MB or less and backup to a file on your hard drive. After the backup is complete, copy that file to the CDRW.