Help! How can I back up my files?!!

[chickensinthebed]

Recently left a job but have left a few files and projects on my work laptop which I would like to transfer to my home laptop (but is in repair) The files are very big due to the work I'm in. However, I stupidly didn't realise that my work laptop has blocked USB ports (due to data protection) and I have no way to transfer my files onto my hard drive. What can I do? I need about 1TB to download the files (lots of videos, software applications). Can anyone recommend any online back up that stores huge memory (I only need it temporarily till my home laptop is fixed).

OneDrive, Dropbox, google drive, Apple iCloud. Lots of options.

note, if it’s a company computer, you may be restricted in what you can do by your contract / policies plus security applied by IT.

movement of large files can be tracked to avoid data loss…..

Are they your files to take? I ask because you mention projects, etc and these would usually be the intellectual property of the company you worked for.

Taking company files could land you in serious hot water, so make damn sure you are legally allowed to!

If you are, contact the IT department and they can give you back USB access to do this (our company did the same thing with USB ports). They usually require line manager approval.

Are the files/videos and software yours or the companies? If they are yours you could contact IT although there maybe a clause in your contract that nothing personal should be stored on work computer.

You can use a website called wetransfer - it will email the files to any email address which you can then pick up on the other laptop and save

Yes these are the projects that I created. I wouldn't take any of my companies ones as they are not of value to me but the projects which I spent months are.

I did request this but my manager refused to give access as this is against their policy.

In ascending order of difficulty:

Can you install Mouse Without Borders (Microsoft app) on your work laptop and home laptop? It's basically a tool that lets you control two devices from one keyboard, a bit like a VNC or remote desktop. Last time I used it it allowed file transfers between devices.

Are you USB ports completely locked down - your system might block USB sticks but could possibly allow a bluray writer. If so you could burn to disk.

Are you able to remove the hard drive from the laptop? Some laptops are easier than others but most allow you to remove the case in order to be able to upgrade the hard drive and RAM. If you can do this, you could take the hard drive out, use a SATA to USB connector (check what interface it uses, solid state drives might not be SATA), copy it to your personal computer/drive and then reinstall it into the work laptop. Note that if your drive is encrypted with Bitlocker or similar this might not work.

Oh and another thing, whatever method you use, I recommend you use 7-zip or similar archive manager.

One, you can shrink the file size which will make the transfer faster. Use "ultra" compression or whatever sounds like it will compress things the most.

Two, you can give the file a password and if you use 7z format you can encrypt the filenames. This means that if your old employer intercepts what you're transferring they won't actually be able to tell what is in the files. Equally if you upload to OneDrive, Google Drive or whatever else, if the files are password protected it will be much less likely anyone else can access them.

You probably have an issue with your company over rights to keep the work that you have done while employed by them - you were paid for that work.

However... Something like the SanDisk Extreme 1TB solid state drive would hold your data but I suspect that you may not be able to simply plug the device in to your work computer and use it for the simple reason that any new devices should be scanned to see if they contains a virus that might infect your work systems.

amzn.eu/d/hAL20Gz

If the site is not blocked you may be able to transfer data out via wetransfer.com/

No I was not paid to do the projects.

@Dotjones your amazing but I suspect the usb are completely blocked so may not be able to use a blue ray as I was unable to connect to my external drive

I am not being rude so I apologies in advance if it comes across that way.

Were you asked by your former employer to do these projects? Had you their consent to use your company laptop to do these projects? I fear that you will be unlikely to gain access to these.

So you were using the company's laptop to complete personal/freelance projects, am I right? Unfortunately in most organisations that's a breach of policy and they aren't going to do anything to facilitate you getting them back, sadly. (To be clear, LOADS of people do this, me included, so I'm not judging you!)

Google Drive probably your best bet, and just hope they don't block it!

Thanks. The projects were for the company but it's voluntary as in, I didn't have to do it but they like people to contribute ideas etc.

So, you've requested access to take files from your former employer's machine, they've refused but you want advice on how to do it anyway?

Be very careful here. Even if the files you want to take are personal, because it's work undertaken on company resources, the company owns it, not you.

@Frabbits

They did not refuse that I can't take my personal project files. They said I can do this but they cannot grant me USB access as it's against company policy so they advised me to send my files on email . The issue is that the files are too big to send over email. I want to know if there are any online back up baited that I can save large files too.

A NAS? Or SanDisk used to do a WiFi access point with usb/sd card you could transfer to and from but I can't see it on amazon now. Some routers have usb for file access. It might not work with your work vpn anyway though.

Google do 2tb for £7.99 a month which you can use on Google drive.

Bluetooth would take forever but might work.

You can use 7zip or similar to both compress and break up files into smaller ones.
So BigFile.ext becomes BigFile1.7z, BigFile2.7z...BigFile11.7z and those smaller files are under whatever size limit you need to consider.
Then use the same software to reassemble and decompress at the other end.

You would need to be very careful if you split it over several archives so you can email it - 1tb of data would take you well over the free storage limit for gmail/outlook/icloud etc.