So you’ve done the computer equivalent of dusting and vacuuming but now you need to clean out the cluttered closet to make room. You have done the three steps I spoke about earlier and cleaned out any old files, as well as anything you don’t need or use anymore.
But what about data that you don’t want to lose, but you would like to remove from your hard drive? Or data you would like to have on a back up copy? You can use the basic floppy disk, but the size limitations can be restrictive. Most modern computers have a CD burner. You should make sure that you do have one of these and not just a regular CD player/reader drive. I will describe the process using Windows XP.
Next you will need a blank CD. You can buy these online or almost any store like Wal-Mart or Target or Best Buy. The best sized pack of blank CDs really depends on how much data you need to burn off your computer. A standard blank CD will hold 700 MB of data. That’s a good bit of space. Usually only very large databases or digital movies will be larger than that in common practice. If you have a few gigs of home pictures, they can easily be sorted and split over multiple CDs.
Let me warn you though, not all CDs are created equal. Quality does matter. A few years ago I bought 300 CDs for a phenomenally low price. Recently going back to retrieve some of the data, I found that it had becoming corrupt (unreadable by my computer due to deterioration of the disk over time). Storage is also important. Read the manufacturer’s label for details but normally I suggest a standard CD case. If you have a lot of CDs check out the affordable music CD folders available at many stores. It will keep your data CDs from banging around and you will still have easy access. Store the CD’s in a cool dry place that doesn’t get direct sunlight. A CD burner uses a laser to write your data to the CD. The photosensitive material can be damaged and data lost if you leave them in direct sunlight like a window or in the back of your car. I also can’t stress this enough though: If it is a very important piece of data or the only copy of something multiple back ups are the way to go!
1. Place blank CD in your CD Burner drive.
2. Go to “Start” then “My Computer”
3. Double Click your CD Drive. You should see an empty Windows Explorer window.
4. Open up the folder with your data in another window. You can drag and drop it into the open CD Drive Window. You can also highlight your data and then right click “Copy” and then “Paste” into your CD Drive Window.
5. In your CD Drive window go to “File” > “Write these Files to CD”
6. Name your CD. Then hit “Next”
7. Wait for your data to be written to the CD.
8. Your CD will eject and the dialogue box will ask you if you would like to write the same data to another CD. If you are doing multiple back ups, this is how you would do it.
9. Click “Finish”
10. Double check your data by reading the data from the CD.
11. Store CD until the data is needed.
And there you have it. It is really quite simple and will let you back up data and save data off your hard drive freeing up space.