Today I will show you how to optimally backup all your personal files, folders and data in a way that is easily read and used in any operating system, not just Windows.
As I have mentioned in earlier guides, Windows Backup & Restore is great if you are sticking with a Windows operating system, but messy and complicated if you want to use that backup in MAC or Linux (its inside a container file) and System Repair Discs are only good for your Windows system, not your personal data. It is far better to manually backup your personal data, preferably in addition to Windows built-in backup, rather than relying solely on the Windows backup format.
Before we begin, you will need either a USB flash drive or external USB hard drive (see example images below) with the capacity to hold all your personal data, which I will go through with you first, before commencing the backup process.
How to manually backup your personal data (Vista, 7 & 8)
1. Calculate how much space you require
- Windows XP/Vista/7: Click on the Start Menu icon
bottom-left of your screen, then click the Computer menu item - Windows 8/8.1: Press the Windows Logo key
on your keyboard, click on the File Explorer icon 
on your taskbar, then click Computer from the left-pane - Click on your System (C:) drive or the drive where your Windows system is installed
- Vista/7/8 user folders location: Computer > System (C:) > Users > [yourusername]
- XP user folders location: Computer > System (C:) > Documents and Settings > [yourusername]
- Right-click on your user folder (named the same as your logon name) and select the Properties menu item
- Look for the Size on disk: XX.XXGB item where XX.XX will be the size of your personal files and data (ie. 15.56GB, MB=Megabyte, GB=Gigabyte, TB=Terabyte)
- Repeat this process for all Users > [username] folders you want to backup
- For USB flash drives, I recommend buying one-size-up from the size calculated, such as: if the size calculated is about 30GB you should buy a 64GB USB flash drive (not 32GB) as this will allow for headroom (you’ll need it).
- If you have more than 128GB of personal data, I recommend buying an external USB hard drive instead of a USB flash drive (see below) as it is more affordable and faster.
- For external USB hard drives, as a minimum I recommend buying a 500GB unit or larger, and USB3.0 rather than USB2.0. They come in sizes up to 4TB as of 2014.
- Obviously you should purchase an external hard drive capable of holding all your personal data plus 100% headroom, in other words double the size of your personal data.
2. Locate important data files
Rather than explain how to find important data files located outside of your user folder (which would make this guide far too long), I will instead give you some links showing how to find the most common ones.
- Find your Outlook data files (.pst .pab .ost .dat .xml etc)
- Find your Windows Mail emails & data
- Find your MYOB company files & backups
- Find your Quicken company files
There may be more data files you need to back up, go through your programs and assess which ones do before proceeding, but most programs will (and should) store data files inside your Users > [username] folder.
3. Copy the data to external drive
- Plug in your USB or external hard drive
- Open your user folder: Computer > System (C:) > Users > [yourusername]*
- You should now see all your user folders (Contacts, Desktop, Downloads, etc)
- Starting at the top of the list, right-click on the first folder
- Mouse-over the Send to: menu item
- Click on the USB or external hard drive from the list, it will usually be named the same as its brand, WD_Elements (E:) or SanDisk (F:) etc
- Windows will now copy the selected folder and it’s contents to your backup drive
- Repeat this process for each folder but be aware, it can take some time (hours) to transfer large amounts of data (ie. My Documents or My Music) especially to USB flash drives
- When finished transferring all your user folders, copy over any extra data files to your backup drive too (Outlook, Quicken etc)
- Backup of all your personal data is complete*
*Please note that sometimes your user folders will be on a different partition or disk, particularly if you have a high-end workstation. Be sure you have at least copied the following folder list…
- Contacts
- Desktop
- Downloads
- Favorites
- Links
- My Documents or Documents
- My Music or Music
- My Pictures or Pictures
- My Videos or Videos
- Saved Games
- Searches
- Any other folders or files inside your user folders
There may be more files related to custom programs installed on your PC (Adobe Creative Suite, Corel etc) you will need to find these files and back them up also.
Cheers guys! and any questions leave them in the comments below.
Tricia Best says
I need to know if I can backup only the info I have added (4yrs worth sigh) so I do not end up with way too many duplicates can you advise?( non tech old lady here but not incapable of learning)
Richie says
Hi Tricia, other than manually checking, there’s not much you can do really. You could delete the older files on the backup device then do a fresh backup, but you could lose files that were previously backed up but deleted on your machine. I would strongly suggest a incremental backup system like EasUS or Acronis as a better longer term solution. cheers, Richie
Janet says
I’m copying from Windows vista to a usb drive formatted exfat by my Mac’s DIsk Utiility. I plan to move the files to my Mac. I can see the external drive in the Computer screen, But in Send to> it does not appear. How can I copy these? Should I reformat the drive to MSDos FaT 32? (my only non mac format choice)
Richie Brereton says
Hi Janet, not sure why the send to menu isn’t showing up, but then again Vista is buggy 🙂 Open up two folder windows, one with the files you want to transfer and the other the USB drive, then simply copy and paste any folder/files you want on the USB drive. Let me know how you go. Cheers! Richie
Bonnie of Michigan says
Since late November 2015 I have been searching for information on how to manually backup my computer and today after another search I came upon your article complete with video and Voila!! I have backed up my computer. Thank you for your visual article and video. The only data I was not able to backup was my Quicken. I did go to the site listed in your article for Quicken help and searched the drive my quicken is on per the Quicken site it did not work. I am not a techy and there in may lay the problem. Again, Thank You! Bonnie
Richie Brereton says
So glad it helped Bonnie. With your Quicken file, just open it up in Quicken and then choose “Save As” and it should open up the folder where it’s located, but don’t save it. cheers! Richie
Octavio Alvarado says
Donald,
Great article. Just wanted to know whether it is possible or not to transfer/backup windows security settings/logon information to another computer. See, I have a computer provided by my commpany (overseas) but the system is not working properly. I would like to reinstall a fresh new system, but I have not done so because my computer has some logging settings (when you log in, you do it using the company’s login information, i.e., username and password defined by our IT staff) that I cannot change, as well as the Outlook’s configuration (same case as before, it’s an account registered in a domain, so I cannot access simply by entering the account information, not sure If I explain myself clearly!). So, If I format and reinstall everthing, I will lose the capability to access our company’s email server and other resources… That’s why I’d like to know whether I can backup these windows security settings somehow and transfer them to a fresh installation… Thanks!
Richie Brereton says
Hi Octavio, thanks mate. Yes you sure can transfer all those settings over. After you have manually transferred files, you will need to use the built-in Windows Easy Transfer app and keep those settings on another hard drive, you would then install a fresh copy of windows, then go to the same app and choose to restore settings and then choose the backup up file on your external hard drive. Just a note* when you first backup using the built-in transfer app, make sure you uncheck files as you have already backed those up using my guide. Alternately you could just transfer everything over using the Windows Easy Transfer app but it will take a long time depending on how many files you have.
Cheers!
Richie
Donald Levesque says
Nice!
Richard my only complaint on you example is that you should add a step where you put the folders your device you are going to be backing up on so that if you have multiple accounts to backup your not mixing their fill all together.
A little more leg work will make it easier for user to backup show user how to create a short cut to their profile folder where it link to the folder they created on external HD so they can just drag and drop folders in to the backup folder. Just a thought.
Richie Brereton says
Hi Donald, excellent question mate. Yes when there are multiple accounts to backup, using the username/folder to differentiate would be the go, also it can be advantageous to have different versions of backups too, particularly on a project environment where different stages are important. I will make some changes to the guide and incorporate that into it. cheers mate, Richie