How to Auto Backup External Hard Drives

You can backup external hard drives like this one.

You can auto-backup almost any hard drive that is connected to your computer. You probably know that the hard drive in your computer can be backed up, but you can do the same with external drives. This is possible thanks to a native feature of the Windows operating system -- Backup and Restore. You can set schedules for backing up files and easily restore backups from the same location.

Things You'll Need

• Second hard drive with sufficient storage space

Instructions

How to Set Up Backup

1. Attach a second external hard drive to your computer. Plug in the power cable and turn on the device.

2. Click "Start," type "backup" and click "Backup and Restore." Click "Set up backup"

3. Click the name of the drive on which you would like to save the backup. You can use your internal drive if it has enough space. The program will tell you if a drive has sufficient space.

4. Click "Next," "Let me choose" and "Next." Click the arrow to the left of "Computer" to expand it.

5. Check the box to the left of the named external hard drive that you want to archive. Uncheck the boxes on the left of any other options, such as "Include a system image of drives," that you do not want to include in the backup.

6. Click "Next." Click "Change schedule" and use the pull-down menus to set the options for scheduling the backup. Make sure that the external hard drive will be connected to the computer at the time you have scheduled.

7. Click "OK." Click "Save settings and run backup." The initial backup will run. This can take several hours.

How to Restore Drive from a Backup

1. Click "Start." Type "backup" and click "Backup and Restore." Click "Recover system settings or your computer."

2. Click the backup volume that you want to restore from the "Restore" section. If it is not shown here, click "Select another backup to restore files from."

3. Follow the on-screen prompts to restore the backup volume to the desired drive. A confirmation will appear when the restore operation is finished.

References

• Windows: Backup and Restore