Still using Floppies?
It seems like just
yesterday that floppy drives were the “cool” thing to use and now we’ve sort
of gone past CDs as well. Of course, CDs are still a good way to save your
information, but is there something even better? To some, a flash drive may
seem like the better answer when it comes to saving your important files and
folders and that’s exactly what we’re going to talk about today.
So, if you own a flash
drive, this tip is especially meant for you! If you have one, you probably
already know what I’m talking about, but just in case some of you aren’t sure,
a flash drive is a tiny portable device that you can use to save any files,
etc. It goes into one of your computer’s USB ports and functions as a
removable hard drive from there. It is versatile in that you can use it on any
computer that has an available USB drive. Most flash drives have at least 512
MB of space, but the more popular ones these days have either 1 or 2 or 4 GB,
which is a lot of space.
Now that we’ve gone
over that, let’s move on to the actual tip for today! If you’re wanting to
save one of your folders (the complete folder) with a USB flash drive, just
follow the directions below and you’ll be done in no time at all.
1. Go ahead and insert
your flash drive into one of your USB ports. The port will either be on the
front, the side or the back of your computer, depending on which style you
have.
2. Once the flash
drive is recognized by your computer, double click on the My Computer
icon on your desktop. (You can also access this by going to Start,
My Computer if you need to).
3. Next, right click
on the folder you want to save. It could be your Shared Documents or maybe
just one of your individual folders. Either way, right click it and select the
Send To option. From there, choose Removable Disk. You may have
several options for this, but just pick the one that your flash drive is
listed under. It could be any letter between G and J.
4. Now, you may
receive a prompt that tells you to overwrite the files that are already on the
flash drive. You’ll want to check this out, because you don’t want any old
versions of the files to be saved and you don’t want to lose anything else
that may already be saved on the drive. If you don’t receive the prompt
though, go ahead and continue on.
5. This is the step
where the files will transfer themselves over to your flash drive. Now,
depending on the amount of files you have to transfer, this could take quite a
long time. You may want to go grab something to eat or take a nap while you’re
waiting. When the transfer is finished, the File Transfer window will
go away.
6. Go back to My
Computer window and right click on the removable disk icon that your flash
drive is listed under. Select Eject and everything will then disappear
from your screen. You can then safely unplug the flash drive from the USB
port.
Once you remove the flash drive, the backup is complete.
Now, there are just a couple tips you’ll want to follow before you start this
process. For one, make sure you have enough room on your flash drive for all
of the contents you’re saving. If you don’t have enough space, the complete
folder, etc. will not transfer over. Also, make sure that you never remove the
flash drive from the USB port before hitting Eject. If you do, you could do
some damage to the flash drive or even worse, lose some of your data.
