External Hard Drive?

[The Howling Wolves]

I have a 500GB MY BOOK external hard drive that I use for my monthly backup.
I did a right click/properties/general and saw My Book is almost used up.

Do I format the external drive and start another back up series?
Is there a way I can back up over the previous data?
As you can tell I am new to external hard drives....
Thanks for any and all help.
Dennis

 

[whs]

An external hard drive is nothing but a big folder. Whatever you do in a folder (or most everything), you can do on the drive. I suggest you just delete the oldest backups to get the free space.
But a lot of backup/imaging programs manage the space if you specify it. What program are you actually using for the backups? If it is the Vista built-in facilities, I recommend to quickly change because the Vista stuff does not work half of the time if you want to recover your data..
Post back and we will discuss it.

 

[The Howling Wolves]

An external hard drive is nothing but a big folder. Whatever you do in a folder (or most everything), you can do on the drive. I suggest you just delete the oldest backups to get the free space.
But a lot of backup/imaging programs manage the space if you specify it. What program are you actually using for the backups? If it is the Vista built-in facilities, I recommend to quickly change because the Vista stuff does not work half of the time if you want to recover your data..
Post back and we will discuss it.

I have Vista Home Premium and was using MY BOOK to a monthly back up in case the system goes down and then using it to do a recovery/restore.

 

[whs]

But what did you use for backup - and did you make file backups or system images? Home Premium has no imaging facilities, so you must have used another program. Home Premium only has file backup facilities - but with those you cannot restore your system. You have to give me a bit more detail so that I understand what you were doing and what you intended to accomplish.

 

[The Howling Wolves]

But what did you use for backup - and did you make file backups or system images? Home Premium has no imaging facilities, so you must have used another program. Home Premium only has file backup facilities - but with those you cannot restore your system. You have to give me a bit more detail so that I understand what you were doing and what you intended to accomplish.

I must be brain dead today where I was thinking one thing and doing another.
I was thinking (ha ha) that I was backing up the whole system. God only knows why I was thinking that. I needed that external hd like I need a hole in my head. Who knows maybe I do!
Sorry to waste your time when you could have helped someone with a more serious problem.
Thanks for your quick responses to me and consider this case resolved.

 

[whs]

Hmm, that is a new twist. But I am glad to help if you really want to backup your whole system from time to time. It's real easy.