How to burn data to CDs before deleting harddisk

During the past few months I have been dealing with a computer that has had a trojan and a worm in it which have been eliminated, but the computer is still having weird problems more than likely caused by the damage done by these things that attacked my computer. I have come to the conclusion that it would be better to delete the harddrive and start over. I have a Gateway computer using a Windows 98 OS. My problem is that I have Family Tree Maker with loads of entries that I need to save to a CD and need some instructions on how to do this. Also other programs with data in them that came with the computer. Can you save things such as this when you don't have the original disks? They were put on the computer before it was shipped. I am sure to save all of these things is going to be a tremendous task. Can anyone help?

 

mary651,
If you have Nero or Gear or any of the better CD burning software you can drag and drop your stuff that you want to backup.
Yes mostlikely that your problems stemm from your Virus unfortunateley a cleanup can leave your system in a dire state I know I have been there myself.
Drive Image 2002 will make a Image of your hard drive including barbs and warts, I believe that you can with the explorer restore selected programs I have never used it but I always have a comlete Image of my HD on CD, the idea is though that you make the Image when all is well then if disaster strikes you can just clean your HD and Restore and every thing is exacktly as it was before, this is for next time.
If you had been thinking about getting a bigger HD this is your excuse now to do it that way you can just install a new drive and install your OS 98 on to that drive and clean up your existing one as you go. There are many programs available to transfere things from one drive to another on the same system.
good luck
hawk22

 

Thanks hawk22 for helping. Do you think it would be a wise thing to purchase a second harddrive to transfer my data to before deleting. I do have a 10 GB drive that came with my Gateway, which I have over half of it unused. I am using the Nero Burning Rom software that came with the CD burner and have tried to drag and drop the info, but it didn't seem to be all there when I reopened it from the CD. Can anyone advise me as to what brand of harddrive to buy and what size I would need. I don't have any more space in the tower to put another harddrive in so it would probably have to be an external one and are there external ones available? Many thanks.

 

hi mary651, well I have always been of the opinion that you can never have enough space, but then that is me I do collect a lot of junk. anyhow 10 GIG is today not regardet as a big drive I have 40 and I am looking at a second drive at approx. the same size.
Both Seagate and Maxtor make pretty good drives. In general hard drives run at there best if they are not more than 70% full.
There are removable hard drives available, but you do need a rack for them.
Unless you have a mini Tower you should have enough room for a second drive assuming that you have 1 Floppy, 1 CD DVD/Rom
and 1 Burner, in general you have 2, 3 1/2" bay's and using a mounting bracket you should be able to hang it in.
On the other hand removable hard drives are very popular for backups plus you can take it to another PC.
So you do have some options, but it is up to your needs.
In regards to Nero which version are you using 5.5.9.17 is a recent one, not sure if it is the latest or not but this is the one that I use and I am happy with that one the previous one to that I did not like at all I had many problems. If you use CD- R/W that allows you to practice without wasting Media.
Sorry I coudn't be of more help to you.
hawk22

( let us know as to your plans)

 

mary651

Do you have recovery disks that came with your computer?

Nero is pretty straight forward for making a data disk to save your FTW files and anything else you want to save.

I would suggest saving only files you have created and your favorites, address book, saved emails etc.

The recovery disks will put everything back to the way it was when you got your computer. Then you can simply add your files back from the data disk you make.

If you don't have the recovery disks, there are other things that could help. Check back here and we can figure something out.

 

About this room for new hard drive thing:

I had a 1998 IBM machine that did not have a extra bay for an additional hard drive. When I called in a friend with some experience (I had none at the time) for hard drive replacement, he just connected it and let it sit on the floor of the case. At a slight tilt and angle I might add. After transferring everything to the new drive, removed the old and put the new in the existing one bay. I don't know if this is good practice, but it sure worked in this instance.

I'm well aware that Murphy's law works at accelerated speed in computing.

 

Martinr121 that's what I did as well.
I considered the cost of an external HD and put that toward increasing the size of an internal one. Took out the old drive and put it aside. When it came time to get a new computer, I transferred the HD across to the new system.
The old HD went back into the old computer (a 1997 IBM ) for the kids to use. (Still has the original load of Win95 and goes well )

Matt

 

Yeah, and not only that, when it came time to add a drive to that old IBM with no drive bay for additional drive, I installed the 2nd drive and attached it below the existing drive cage with cable ties. Its still there two years later working away. I guess with a PCI IDE card installed I could put 2 more hard drives in that machine and just hang them anywhere inside. Then, two more hard drives on the secondary IDE channel for a total of six.

Seems to me that the only use for external drives that cost so much more would be for someone who was afraid (or too smart) to open the case.