What Files on Vista Need to Be Backed Up?

I am going to send my laptop back to Hp to get the screen repaired and they said I should backup my file just incase. Well I am running Vista home premuim and I need to know what files MUST be backed up.

 

Personally, I would pop out the hard drive and send in the PC without the hard drive.

 

Burn a copy of the restore DVD (if you havent done yet)
Backup your personal files/folders
Reformat the HDD using the above restore DVD's.

Send the system out to HP. When you get it back you will have to start over again. Thats what I would do since HP sometimes will reformat the HDD during service and sometimes might replace it even if the HDD was not the obvious source of the problem.

 

AKAJohnDoe's option is the safest - not only do you not have to worry about the "geniuses" at .HP kludging up your installation or your data files, you also don't have to worry about some disgruntled employee reading through all of your files for "useful" info, or running a data recovery app on your hard drive to pull up all those sensitive things you thought were deleted, or even worse, didn't think had ever been written to the drive in the first place (e.g., temporary from your online banking transactions - even tho technically "deleted" the data still resides on disk for a long time, and any half-way decent app can pull most of the necessary info off the disk).

Otherwise, if you're lazy (or trusting) just make sure you've burned your recovery DVDs, then make a backup copy of all of your data files (e.g., documents, etc) and backup copies of any programs you don't have saved on separate media already (e.g., an app you bought online and downloaded, and thus never received a copy on CD/DVD).

Then run a disk utility that will clean erase the so-called "empty" space on the hard drive (basically, something that will write over the space on the drive that isn't assigned to a particular file on the drive's file system tables, thereby making it more difficult to retrieve copies of things that were deleted - such as temporary files from online banking transactions). The free software stickie thread has some freeware apps that'll do just that.

 

Well if my screen is going to be repaired would I still need to make backups? and How do I make a back up of a recovery cd? Can it go on flash drive?

 

Yes, as I mentioned earlier and hopefully the HP rep mentioned it you as well they might erase the data on the HDD during the servicing process. So, it is better to have backups just in case. If you already burnt a copy of the recovery disc then you should be able to extract the image from each of the CD/DVD and store it on an external HDD. Most DVD/CD burning software should have this capability or there are free ones available which will do the same.

 

But what file should I go to burn a copy? Because My laptop said it doesnt come with a recovery disc. I can't remeber but it said something about it being a file I can use it for.

 

Ok, HP has their own software which will burn the necessary Vista files to CD or DVD's(just make sure you have enough of them - 10+ CD's or 3 DVD's and make sure they arent rewritable discs). I cant remember the exact location of the software right now but look under start menu->all programs for recovery disc creator or something similar. Probably look under any of the HP folders.

 

If you store your stuff in you "user" folder (like "Documents", "Pictures", etc) then run the Vista Backup and Restore. It will automatically save any and all files of the file types you select. Unfortunately you won't know exactly what files it backs up until after it does it. But usually if you throw your stuff in your User folder it will be backed up.

 

Can I store the system restore on a flash drive? thids kind of gets me mad because I don't know why they would need to wipe my hardrive if they are fixing my screen

 

If they erase my hdd will my laptop stop working?

 

The point isn't that they have to wipe your drive, the point is that there is a material risk that your data might get corrupted during shipping or during the repair work (they'll have to dismantle most of the computer in order to swap the display unit out). The advice to make a backup is just good, prudent advice to make sure that you don't end up losing something irreplaceable by accident. Thus, there is nothing to get mad about.

If you make backups of your files, you could probably back them up to a flash drive, provided it's big enough; otherwise, just back up to an external USB drive if you don't want to back up to CD/DVD.

In terms of making recovery discs for your OS, you are correct inasmuch as _HP did not ship recovery media with the notebook. Instead, they created a recovery partition on the hard drive (it's probably labelled as drive d:\). If you read your user manual (the one that came with it, or the one that's freely available online from the _HP support website), you'll find out how to burn a set of recovery discs from the files kept in the recovery partition (it can only be done once). If you deleted the recovery partition without making those recovery discs, then you're SOL and you'll need to purchase a set of recovery discs from _HP.

In what way do you mean? It won't boot up to Windows because there won't be an OS available to boot to, and it won't load any drivers that aren't stored in the BIOS itself (or the VBIOS) because there won't be any drivers on the hard drive either. However, it will still be a perfectly functional piece of equipment and will run through the POST functions in the BIOS, and then probably end in a black screen with the warning that it couldn't find a bootable OS.

That situation could only be remedied by your installing an OS of some sort on the computer.

 

I think when you just ask what must be backed up for a screen repair - well, nothing really must be backed up...

But I've seen some very valid points as to why you may want to remove the HDD.
The only files you really should back up are personal files.
If they do a recovery of the drive to the factory default, then the recovery partition will still exist.

I had a Medion laptop in with an electrical fault on something connecte to the screen - it came back as it was in terms of th HDD.

But Shyster's point about banking or any other form of password, teporary data from IE is very valid.

 

look the easy way
- make a password for your vista account ( user )
- make a power on password ( from the bios screen in the settings )
-make they know that you don't want anyone near your data whatever happens , even if the computer is not working (which will not happen while changing scree) , just make sure not to MESS WITH YOUR HaRDDRIVE
good luck m8 and i just wanted to say i hate HP customer service

 

They may have to turn th computer on to test the screen - locking it in the BIO is pointless in that respect.

 

That's a good way to get the system returned to you without having been fixed, along with a note saying they couldn't get the system to run due to a BIOS password.

The fact of the matter is, in order to do a proper swap-out of the display unit, they are going to have to boot the thing up to make sure that they put the new one in properly and that there are no problems/defects with the new one - if they cannot do that, then you're basically making the whole thing pointless.

 

Just backup, reformat or reinstall base OEM load, or if you're not concerned about security, then just backup for your own sake. I'm sure most techs don't have time to snoop, especially at a place like HP. Use freeware DriveImage XML to do a full system backup, save to USB HDD, and you're good to go.

 

More likely, most techs are good enough people that they wouldn't snoop simply because snooping is wrong; however, there are always one or two bad seeds, and since you don't get to interview and select which tech is going to be working on your system, why take the risk?

 

I agree, but the OP seems resistant to doing this. I would backup and re-image factory install myself. And with the free utils there's no reason not to. Slamming the backup image back on the drive would take 20 minutes after he gets it back. Done deal.

 

Yup. I don't know why some folks get so resistant to taking simple steps that might save them a ton of grief they would otherwise have to deal with down the road.