Backing up

skives

I am going to format my dad's hard drives and he has a lot of pictures on them. I was wondering what the best way to back them up was?

Thanks

Sie

Depends how many is "lots".

USB Flash device (if you have one)
CD-R / DVD-R (depending on how large the files are)
Networked storage if you have neither of these
Secondary hard drive

Do you have a USB drive or CD-R/DVD-R on the machine?

skives

I am talking GBs of pictures. He has 2 hard drives internal which I am formatting. Then one external 250GB hard drive (not formatting). Should I just copy them over to that hard drive?

Sie

Yeah if you have a 250 GB external HD copy them over to that. Just make sure you have drivers if your not using XP or its not PNP.

You can hold 4GB on a DVD-R (depends if you have drive or not)

One thing i must STRESS though. Double check they have copied over to whatever media you use.

I have a few times created a CD or copied files and wiped the source only to find when checking to copy the files are missing or wont open!!

There must be LOTS if its GB, either that or they are very large detailed files (unless they are all BMP's! lol)