This may be a stupid question, but how do you do a backup onto a cd burner? When you do a backup should you do the entire system or just the files? If you do the entire system is it possible to write to a cd-r with 700mb? And if so how many does it take? I personally have never done a backup on any system (I guess I have always been lucky in that sense). Should you first save the backup onto your desktop then take it from there onto the burner?

Windows xp includes advanced backup features that enable you to store backup dat to any kind of removable media(tape drives, zip drives, cd rom drive, etc.) To use the Backup wizard, just follow these steps: 1)Start->All Programs->System Tools->Backup. 2)Next 3)click Perform a backup radio button, and then Next. 4)Here, you can choose to back up everything on your computer, only certain drives and files, or only System State data. Make a selection and click Next. 5) if you chose to back up selected files, an Explorer-type window appears where you can select the drives, folders, or even specific files that you want to back up. Click the check boxes for the items you want to back up. Make your selection and click Next. 6) choose the location where you want to store backup files. Make your selection and click Next. 7) you can click Finish to start the backup job. the Advanced option will give you some additional backup features you may want to consider before performing the backup. 8)In the Type of Backup window, choose a type of backup. See the Windows XP help files for more detailed information about these options. Make any desired selection and click Next. 9)Here, Windows XP asks you whether you wan to verify data once it has been backed up, which is a good idea. You can choose other selections here. Make any desired selections and click Next. 10)In Media Option window, make any desired selection and click Next. 11) you can choose a backup label if you want, click next. 12)you can choose to run backup now or later. 13)Finally, click Finish. the Backup process occurs. Hope this helps. Bye

Ive attempted to use this utility you are talking about joseph on two differant computers and the only media to back up too on both computers were a: drive. Both computers had writers in them but that utility would not work with writer that i could see. Have you used the writer with that and if so how? The help file under that says nothing about cdwriters but talks a lot about tape drives.

What kinda cdwriter do you have sprank? If its a hewlett packard they have a download program from their site called simple backup and with it you can backup all or part of your computer. It usually takes anywhere from 2 to more cds to do a full system backup. If you just had a couple of important folders with data in it you didnt want to lose you can do a backup of just those folders. Or you can do the complete backup and back up the whole computer. Its really a easy job with the software. Now what software you use and if its compatible with your writer is the real issue. As you can see from this site alone roxio has those backup features with their software also but roxio cd creator just doesnt seem to get along with xp very well. I have no problems at all out of the recordnow and simple backup software from hewlett packard with xp. Its flawless. What kinda writer do you have and what software came with yours?

doc, Everything I have is HP. The cd burner is a 8230e external model. I tried to do a full backup and save it to my desktop so that I could transfer it onto the burner, but it didn't work. I received a message half way through the backup that I didn't have enough space to go further. So that scraped that idea. I would like to do a full backup, but don't know what I have to do to get it onto the burner. I am using up roughly 3gb of memory right now. So I don't know how many cd-r's that will take at 700mb to use.

doc, The software that came with the 8230e is recordnow. Don't know if that helps or not?

Okay friend you are in buisness. You need simple backup from hewlett packard to do the job. Here is the website. http://www.hp.com/cgi-bin/cposupport/swindex.pl?p=hpcdwriter22108&l=en&c=MicrosoftWindowsXP Just download and install the simple backup for writer at that site and once installed just click on it and go to town. Its so simple. The record now is not really for a complete system backup but the simple backup is. Let me know If all comes out well.