Best backup practices and recovering lost data.
Backup and Recovery
How Do I Move Photos off an Old Windows 98 Computer?
Episode 1781
Jan fromJan has an old HP desktop running Windows 98 and has a working floppy drive. She can't connect it to the internet because a browser doesn't support it. So she'd like to donate it. Before that though, she wants to get her images off it. How can she do that and put it back on her newer Windows 7 computer? Leo says Jan should be able to plug a USB Thumbdrive so you can. But really, old versions of Windows 98 didn't, so that could be Jan's main problem. You can download a third-party USB driver that will handle it.
How Can I Do Cloud Backup on My Mac With an External Hard Drive?
Episode 1775
Glenn fromGlenn bought a 4TB hard drive so he could back up stuff and then move it to the cloud. But he's been told that he can't upload an entire image using Mac. Leo says that a more efficient way to do it is to have two hard drives and bring one off-site. Maybe to home or to work. Then swap them every other week. Leo also says that Fuse for the Mac will let you see other file formats on the mac, like NTFS, and use that to back it up.
How Can I Backup My Network Hard Drives?
Episode 1772
Martin fromMartin wants to know what is a good backup strategy for his Seagate hard drives and how can he mount them as network drives. Leo says that Seagate has its own backup in the cloud, which figures out where all the drives are. But that's not the only way to do it. FTP can work with a sync program. Robocopy wasn't designed for it, but it may be able to. The key is to figure out what the IP address is on the fly since most are dynamic. If he had a static IP, it wouldn't be a problem. The key is to find a sync program that supports FTP, but FTP isn't secure either. SCP is where it's at.
Why Do Some Hard Drives Fail With Backup and Recovery?
Episode 1767
Jacob fromJacob runs Windows 10 and uses a 2TB USB external drive for backup. He can either do an image that restores file by file or the entire drive. But it doesn't work to restore with all hard drives. What gives? Leo says that there are some drives that combine two drives into one. But they are fewer and farther between now, as 2TB drives are more readily available. Plus, operating systems are now 64 bit, so it's easier to keep track of larger file sizes. In reality, it shouldn't matter. Windows should just read them.
How Can I Put Movies on an iPad Without My Apple ID?
Episode 1764
Kevin fromKevin wants to give a family member an iPad with movies on it for her stay in the hospital. But he doesn't want her to have his Apple ID. Leo says that Apple Family allows users to share data with up to 6 family members. Users can share music, apps, tv and movie purchases, iCloud, photos, the works. How about backing up with a simple drag and drop? Leo says that he's a fan of iMazing. It will allow him to easily transfer files that way.
Is there any way to control the iPad remotely? Leo says no. He can go from iOS to macOS, but not the other way.
Is Google Backup and Sync Good For Backing Up Data?
Episode 1764
Jeff fromJeff wants to know if Google Backup and Sync is a good way to back up his hard drive. Leo says he's used it and it works. It's not really designed to be a hard drive backup, but he can use it for something like Google Photos. But also remember that Google Drive isn't private. People can see user data online. So he wouldn't use it for sensitive data. Leo recommends iDrive because it does not only encrypt data, but it also has versioning, so it keeps versions of the data. It's a much better solution.
Why's My Restore Point Getting Deleted?
Episode 1762
Robert fromRobert has a Dell Inspiron running Windows 10, but his restore point keeps getting deleted. Leo says that Microsoft deprecated System Restore recently, and Leo says it has never really worked when he needed it the most. He can still use it, but he will need to re-enable it. Windows Key + Restore. Here's a link from the chatroom about this issue, but it's a few years old.
What Are My Alternatives to Google Photos?
Episode 1759
Diane fromDiane hears that Google Photos is going to end on January 5th. Leo says that's not accurate. Google Photos will be ending their free unlimited photo storage on June 1st. However, until then, you can store unlimited photos that will remain free forever. After that, the 15GB limit will apply to any new photos, music, all your docs, and email. But Google's pay tier is pretty affordable if you need more space.
There are other options like Shutterfly and Amazon Prime.
Can I Connect a Drive to My Router & Create a NAS?
Episode 1758
Chuck fromChuck wants to know if he can connect a USB drive to his router. Leo says the router has to support it. It's not really "plug and play." And if it does support it, it may be pretty slow. But it can be accessed from any computer on the network, so it's kinda like a cheap NAS. If the router is open-source compatible, then Leo recommends going with DD-WRT or Tomato for the firmware. They have NAS features that could be most helpful.
What is Amazon AWS?
Episode 1758
Joey fromJoey wants to know about Amazon's AWS and S3 storage. He can't figure it out. Leo says that there are several levels of S3 storage, including Glacier. And S3 is used by DropBox and others as their back end. It's a bit techy, but it's designed for home use. Fast to backup, but very slow to download and restore. It's like cold storage. It's become the biggest part of Amazon's business, with over a third of cloud services run by AWS.
Amazon also offers cloud computing, with such services as Macintosh in the Cloud, and others.