I have Norton Security Suite from Comcast. I have trustingly been backing up religiously twice a week during the wee hours of the morning (except when Windows Update interrupts it and reboots the computer). I innocently thought I was covered for back up (to an external USB hard disk). I need to know what to do to get it to back up and KEEP all my documents.
About a week ago, my one-year-old Dell Inspuron 570 with Windows 7 gave me a blue screen and the only thing I could get it to do was to "Back up" and start over again with Windows. When I went to recover my files from the Windows "backup", I discovered that it had only backed up a random selection of files from each of several apparently randomly selected folders.Most of my data was simply missing.
I was much relieved to find that Norton Security Suite had backed up that very morning and since I hadn't done much that day, I thought I was covered. To save space and to have a different place to keep them, I restored the files to the hard disk of my old Dell Dimension from 2002 (which is still working with Windows XP more reliably than the new Inspiron....why did I ever replace that computer/) and have been grabbing files via the home network as I discovered I needed them.
So imagine my shock and horror when I went to use my financial files that were created and kept in QuattroPro and discovered not only were they not on the hard disk of the Inspiron, they also were not included in the Norton Security Suite restored files either. There were only four out of ninety-nine files that had been backed up and restored. And they were not the most recent files either. Unfortunately my Dell Studio 1550 laptop had also run aground about two weeks earlier and so the redundant data that is usually there was also wiped out. (Now I suspect it was the Constant Guard software that gave the laptop narcolepsy.)
So why, when it could find the "Financial" folder and it was asked to back up all "financial" files, didn't it back up ALL the files in that folder? What can I do to get it to do so? There is only one back-up set visible on the external USB hard disk. I was assuming that it simply updated the whole set of files with the new ones each time it ran. Apparently that is not the case.
Fortunately I had also copied the most important of those files to a memory stick back in August, so I "only" have six months of data to restore from paper copies, and my Quicken files were backed up to a memory stick as well, so at least I have that data, but I'd like to avoid having to do this again. (And I don't doubt that this newer Dell will cause me to have to do it again....)
Now that I've been able to sign in and post after typing five different sets of human-identifying letters and three attempts to verify my email address, does anyone have any insight on this?
I have Norton Security Suite from Comcast. I have trustingly been backing up religiously twice a week during the wee hours of the morning (except when Windows Update interrupts it and reboots the computer). I innocently thought I was covered for back up (to an external USB hard disk). I need to know what to do to get it to back up and KEEP all my documents.
About a week ago, my one-year-old Dell Inspuron 570 with Windows 7 gave me a blue screen and the only thing I could get it to do was to "Back up" and start over again with Windows. When I went to recover my files from the Windows "backup", I discovered that it had only backed up a random selection of files from each of several apparently randomly selected folders.Most of my data was simply missing.
I was much relieved to find that Norton Security Suite had backed up that very morning and since I hadn't done much that day, I thought I was covered. To save space and to have a different place to keep them, I restored the files to the hard disk of my old Dell Dimension from 2002 (which is still working with Windows XP more reliably than the new Inspiron....why did I ever replace that computer/) and have been grabbing files via the home network as I discovered I needed them.
So imagine my shock and horror when I went to use my financial files that were created and kept in QuattroPro and discovered not only were they not on the hard disk of the Inspiron, they also were not included in the Norton Security Suite restored files either. There were only four out of ninety-nine files that had been backed up and restored. And they were not the most recent files either. Unfortunately my Dell Studio 1550 laptop had also run aground about two weeks earlier and so the redundant data that is usually there was also wiped out. (Now I suspect it was the Constant Guard software that gave the laptop narcolepsy.)
So why, when it could find the "Financial" folder and it was asked to back up all "financial" files, didn't it back up ALL the files in that folder? What can I do to get it to do so? There is only one back-up set visible on the external USB hard disk. I was assuming that it simply updated the whole set of files with the new ones each time it ran. Apparently that is not the case.
Fortunately I had also copied the most important of those files to a memory stick back in August, so I "only" have six months of data to restore from paper copies, and my Quicken files were backed up to a memory stick as well, so at least I have that data, but I'd like to avoid having to do this again. (And I don't doubt that this newer Dell will cause me to have to do it again....)
Now that I've been able to sign in and post after typing five different sets of human-identifying letters and three attempts to verify my email address, does anyone have any insight on this?