Euugghhh 10 years of data

[jujubean]

Have just been given a new laptop and now have the huge task of moving everything over. Old laptop has EVERYTHING on it as I was lazy when the PC died and just did a mass transfer instead of a tidyup and declutter. I have an external hard drive. So help:

1. I have digital images in triplicate is there an easy way to identify and delete the duplicates?
2. Tell me a good file structure for my new laptop instead of 'can't be arsed to file so lets keep it all in 'Documents''
3. New laptop and DH laptop are both Windows 7 can I do some kind of networking?
4. I use AVG Free anti-virus, what else do I need for spyware and malware.
5. Maybe I should be using some kind of cloud thingummy?

I am reasonably computer literate in that I have re-formatted hard drives in the past but obviously having a nice neat IT system at home is WAY down the 'to do' list.

I'll answer the bits I feel able to.

1. I was told you need three copies: one on your pc (or laptop), one on a removable drive (usb, sd or removable hard drive) and one in the cloud.

1. Welcome to a fellow free av user. My av of choice is Avast. I back it up with Malware Bytes Anti-Malware (MBAM). And Threatfire. I also recommend a free tool called CCleaner, which is the best thing on the internet.

Regarding Threatfire, I don't know whether it works with AVG. It works with Avast. It analyses how programs access your hard drive, and warns you if anything attempts to change the way any program works.

1. See 2.

I can't answer Q3 as I run XP and have no experience of Windows 7.

I know there is networking / sharing available with Win 7 but have not had hands on, sorry. Have stuck with Windows XP *+linux, and some ancience Apple Mac kit) and 2 years ago told my clients if they go with Win 7 they'd be needing support from elsewhere. Gave the Win 7 laptop to my BiL in 2010 after owning it for maybe 2 months - he needed a laptop to work from home and it seemed not to like my router when attempting to connect wirelessly (I'm also a fan of cable, not wi-fi!)

"I was told you need three copies: one on your pc (or laptop), one on a removable drive (usb, sd or removable hard drive) and one in the cloud."

Before the cloud we talked of grandfather, father and son backups where the oldest (tape) was the one to overwrite for the most recent (son) backup.

Once you've moved on from tape to writing CDs/DVDs or using USB sticks, then the principle remains, but you ensure one copy is away from the house (in office draw, perhaps, or with friends/ relatives). If your backups include sensitive work documents home made porn etc then there are some utilities which will encrypt and need a password / pass phrase to decode again, so someone getting access to the backup cannot view the contents without some effort.

As for file structure, as you have 10 years of data, you might want to first have folders on a year by year basis, and then split items by type (photos, video, document) or vice versa - split first by type and then by year (and if necessary, by month).

You can keep things in easily sorted order if you use some naming convention like * so today's folder would be 20120627* ... of course you could just use year and month or if you would find that too big a chose, then perhaps use 2012Q2 (quarter 2, July - Sept is quarter 3)

Thanks for all those tips. Will get onto it.

Having a look for duplicate file finder software, there are a few options out there:

PC World article on a couple

Article on free software

And another

I think your question 2 was less about backups and more about how to arrange your files in their primary locations. I think a lot of this depends on what kind of documents you've got, how often you access them and (particularly) how often you struggle to find something you need. Some interesting tips and ideas here.