[phixgrrrl]

I formatted my external usb drive and I'm using it as a back up drive b/c my internals are stuffed. Isn't the purpose of backup software mainly to schedule your backups? I don't necessarily need that so...

[Cazio]

...so you can just drag'n'drop the files you want backed-up. Scheduling is good if there are files that are frequently modified that you really, really don't want to lose. Otherwise, I don't really see a point.

[Compiler]

Drag & drop if you want... or use WindowsXP built in Backup tool. Its included on XP PRO and MCE. Its on the CD-ROM of XP-Home.

[crjdriver]

It really depends on what you want to backup.

Do you want a complete backup of your system including the operating system?

Do you simply want a backup copy of data/work files?

[phixgrrrl]

I'm just backing up certain files...photoshop files, music, pics, etc.

[dannyn]

You can you a program like acronis, but your best bet is probably to just drag and drop.

[crjdriver]

Then just copy the files to the second drive. Remember to have at least two copies of anything important; ie leave one copy on your system drive and the other on the external.

[stantley]

Try SyncBack, a freeware backup utility. The advantage to using a backup utility is that it will find which files have changed since the last backup and only copy the ones that have changed, which means the backup will run much faster.

[Compiler]

WindowsXP still includes a basic backup tool, as well.