Backing Up the Backups

Would you rather have your backups on 3-1/2" disks that only fit into your "A Drive" (if you still have one!) or would it make sense to transfer them to CDs that work in any 21st century computer? Or perhaps you have this great external hard drive that backs up everything on your computer every night. But, wait! That stuff that's on the little disks isn't on your computer any more! You moved it to backup disks because you wanted to save it for history, for looking at sometime in the future; and maybe you saved the chapters you started writing for the Great American Novel or for your autobiography in case you ever become famous. Well, you better put all that stuff on CDs, and the sooner the better. Some smarty-pants computer buffs don't even have a 3-1/2" drive.

That's what I've been doing off and on for the last two days... but of course I have to look at every single piece of data so I can remember why I saved it... and if it was childhood memories, or copies of letters I wrote 12 years ago, or several years' worth of emails from my sister, or entries from my Japan Journal, you can believe it took a lot of time.

Only a very few of the old files were corrupted and wouldn't transfer. Occasionally the A drive would start crunching and beeping. Major panic! I developed a devil-may-care attitude, telling myself "nothing ventured, nothing gained". Finally I discovered that things went more smoothly when I created a new folder on the old disk, then dragged and dropped the old files into it... and then copied the folder to a CD. Of course, one CD has skaboodles of room, so 20 disks became 4, and would have been fewer except I organized as I went (my autobiography AND my Great American Novel are both on one disk :)

This exercise isn't for the faint of heart. It's a learning experience all the way. Sure nice to learn how to do new stuff, though, and to figure it out all by yourself. Okay you smarty-pants gurus out there, I know it is a very simple procedure, but for an old dog like me, it was cause for celebration to learn this new trick.