Vista - Backing up to an external HD

I have bought a WD external hard drive, and backed up the contents of my family's computers onto it. I was intending to update the back up on a regular basis- will the files get automatically overwritten? I'm assuming so as I can't see how you would remember which files were new.Apologies again for a stupid question!

Well I think they would be or possibly the old files and renamed. If you don't want them replaced, rename the current backup. Sort it into folders if you have enough space.

I don't know if this is a good way to use my newly acquired hard drive, but I have copied my family's documents and pictures so they are easily accessible- I can just plug the hd into any computer and work with the files.I have also gone to backup and recover and backed up my laptop to the drive:
http://screencast.com/t/WHlbrVbqig

http://screencast.com/t/kO7TbdUbATmH

These files are compressed, and not in a form you could work with easily, but I figured this would be a good way to ensure nothing was lost.What has been backed up?( I have vista home premium) It certainly took a long time so I'm assuming there are system files etc. Should I still allow my laptop to do automatic backups to its own drive?
Apologies again if these are stupid questions, I just wondered what others do.
Gads

Hi gadusmorhua, there is no problem with losing anything with regard to doing a back up on External HD.
Each time you do a back up, all your old files are kept...and any new files are added, the same as if you do a back up on your computer's internal drive. It is up to you whether you do a back up on your computer's hard drive as well as Ext HD.

My computer's drive isn't as large as I would like it to be, so I have removed partitions to give me extra space. I do backups only on Ext HD.
In this instance you need to be able to access your external HD if your computer goes pearshaped. It's the risk you take.
That is if your computer HD takes a dive, you are at a friend's place, but the Ext HD is at home, your in trouble till you get home and do a restore from Ext HD.

If you go to Back up and Restore Centre you will find a set and forget automatic back up to your computer's D Drive.

If you're not confident about removing partitions and have the HD space, you may be best to do that.

It certainly won't do any harm to have the extra back up and you have access to backup if your Ext HD is not with you.

Don't forget you can also just copy and paste any files from your computer to your Ext HD as you would any file on your C Drive. This will save you looking around in the compressed files for hours looking for what you need.

Ps backups can take as long as a couple of hours or 20 to 30 mins, depending on files added after previous backup.
If you change the destination for back up from C Drive to Ext HD or vise versa, Vista will do a full back up and this will take awhile... ie depending on size , maybe a couple of hours.

Hope I have helped in some way.
GT.

Thanks for the clarification GT.Being a home user I have plenty of space on my laptop drive, so I think I will back up to both. I was aware that the back up is partitioned on the laptop harddrive but surely that doesn't help if the hd fails totally?

No worries gadsmorhua....yes if the HD in computer fails totally, you're pretty much out of business.