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Wingate University > Computers > Help Pages > Taking it With You: Saving Your Files

What this page is all about.

We've all been there. For whatever reason, we've all had to get a copy of whatever we are working on off of one computer and onto another. This page examines some of the options available for doing just that. Along the way we will also look at a few how-to's as well as some things to avoid at all costs.

Floppies are death.

Other than punch cards and magnetic tape, floppy disks are the oldest way of moving files from one computer to another. There was once even a time when the lowly 5.25" (and latter the 3.5") disk was more reliable than the hard drive on a PC. Those days are gone. Floppy disks and to an even greater extent floppy disk drives are now very unreliable, just don't use them. A floppy disk drive can, without warning, render a floppy disk unreadable. Ironically this almost always happens when writing or saving to a floppy. Some symptoms of an unreadable disk is that you can see the file listed when trying to open a document, but the program (Microsoft Word, for instance) says that it can't find the file. Other times you might get a message saying that the disk is not formatted and ask whether you want to format the disk now (the answer is "no"). Still other times the disk will simply spin for five or ten minutes, seemingly doing nothing. Each of these corresponds to a different type of damage to the disk. In some cases, taking the disk back to the computer the file was saved on will bring the file back, at other times the disk repair utility in My Computer will help. In the vast majority of cases, once a floppy disk is damaged, the files on it are gone forever. However, if you cannot use the options listed below and you must use a floppy disk, be certain that you have saved you work someplace else, such as the hard drive on your computer or your network (N:\) drive in the computer labs.

E-mailing your work.

One method of copying your work from one computer to another is to e-mail what you have done as an attachment. This method is fairly straight-forward and has the advantage that until you delete the message, the attached file is available to you from anyplace that has Internet access.

Before you can send an attached file, you must first save it to your computer. Remember where you have saved it, since the e-mail program will ask for this information later.

You can use almost any e-mail client (such as Microsoft Outlook Express) or service (such as Hotmail or Yahoo!) to send attached files with messages. Each looks method or service looks a little different from every other, but they all work about the same way. For our purposes, we will look at Wingate's Webmail service (http://mail.wingate.edu:8383) because everyone on campus as access to it. To start, open up the Wingate Webmail service (http://mail.wingate.edu:8383) from your favorite browser and select Compose from menu bar. From there, address the message to yourself and add a subject heading (the subject heading can be very useful in distinguishing one attachment from another if you start to get into the habit of sending files this way). If you look at the bottom of the Webmail window, you will see a form to add attachments (see the accompanying figure). The first step is to browse for the file you wish to attach by pressing the browse button and then search for the file you just saved. Once you have selected a file, the file name will pop up in the box between the browse button and the link that says <<Attach<<. Click the <<Attach<< link and the file name will now move into the box on the far left. You may repeat this process for as many files as you need to attach. When you are done, press the Send link.

You may now pick up your attachment at the other computer. Note: when picking up an attached file you are often given the choice of Opening or Saving the file. Do not open the file! I would strongly recommend Saving the file without trying to open it from within the e-mail program, particularly a web-based one. The reason for this is that any file opened within a browser or other e-mail client is referenced to that client. For instance, if you open a Word document inside WebMail, even though you are working in Microsoft Word, Microsoft Word is inside the web browser. Anything you save in will go back to the cache or temporary internet files by default. Once you close your Word session, the document you have been working on is lost.

On the other hand, if you save an attached file to your N:\ drive or a USB drive while still in the e-mail program, you can then open the file with the appropriate program (for instance, save stuff.doc file in My Documents and then open it with Microsoft Word). If you find that you are receving an error message when you attempt to open an attachment that you have sent to yourself, please e-mail Jimm Wetherbee or call him at 8092.

There are a couple of draw-backs to e-mailing attachments. The obvious problem is for those who do not have Internet access. The less obvious draw-back is that many e-mail providers limit the size of a message. For instance, for all practical purposes, the Wingate e-mail system will not let you send an attachment greater than 3 MB. Some Power Point presentation (particularly those with images embedded) can be much larger than that. Other e-mail providers can be even more restrictive.

Save your work to the N:\ drive.

Every student and faculty member has a network drive, usually labeled N:\ (for network: cute, eh?). Files saved to your N:\ drive can be used from those smart classrooms connected to the campus network (and that is almost all of them). It is then a simple matter of logging onto the smart station and pulling the presentation off your N:\ drive. N:\ drives are backup daily from the computer room in the Library.

It is also possible to save work to your N:\ drive even when you are not on the campus network (say the campus apartments, for instance) using a protocol called FTP. For details see http://www.wingate.edu/it/guides/sftp.html for students and http://www.wingate.edu/it/guides/fsftp.html for faculty and staff. Unfortunately, the network drive is not an option for those with no network connection.

USB thumb drives.

Thumb drives (also known as JumpDrives, memory sticks or USB memory cards) are cool. Look at the side (or perhaps the front) of your computer for some little slots (they measure about 1.5x1 cm). Those little slots are USB ports. Just plug one of these little (and they are little) the thumb drive in, and the system automatically recognizes the stick as a new disk drive. You can write and save to these just the same way you can with a hard-drive. Thumb drives are more reliable and faster than floppies, and easier to use than either CDs or network drives (we'll come to CDs in just a bit). The are a bit small, however. Sometime that’s good, but they can be easily lost. Many thumb drives protect against such loss by reserving part of its memory for secure storage. Secure storage, however, requires a program to be installed on the computer you are read the files from. Many computers on campus restrict who can install programs. So, if you are going to access files from a campus computer you must write to the unsecured area of the thumb drive.

CD-R and CD-RW

Another method of saving files is to write or "burn" them to CD. There are two basic types of burnable CDs, CD-Rs and CD-RWs.

The easiest way to remember the difference between the two is the CD-R means “Compact Disc: Recordable” and CD-RW means “Compact Disc: ReWritable.”

Most programs that control how a CD-R drive work (and this includes Windows XP) will not allow you write directly to the CD-R. Instead you must copy a file from one location (say the hard drive on your computer or your N:\ drive). Once a file is copied or burnt onto a CD-R that file cannot be changed. This does not mean that once you have burnt a CD-R, you cannot add files to it. While it is possible to burn a CD-R so that it can never be written to again, most programs (including Windows XP) allow you to add files after having burnt some in. This is called “multisessioning.”

Unformatted CD-RWs act just the same as CD-Rs. If a CD-RW is formatted, you can not only write directly to the CD-RW (as if it were a very large floppy), you can also delete file and change files. There are a some caveats to mention, however. First, you need a specific CD-RW program to write to a CD-RW (its called a packet-writing program). Unfortunately, not all packet-writing methods work on all computers, so you may end up saving a file in a format that is unreadable on the computers in the lab or smart classrooms. Second, formatting a CD-RW can take up to 45 minutes. Finally, like floppies, there is a limit to how many times one can rewrite to a CD-RW. At some point, the disc will fail making either a file or the entire 700 MB disc unreadable (talk about losing your Magnum Opus).

The varieties of CD formats

Just to make life confusing, not all CD formats are alike. On the one hand there are data CDs that store files such as documents and presentations, but there are also audio and video formats that are not stored as computer files. So, the audio CD that you have cannot not directly imported into a Power Point presentation. To work such an audio clip into a Power Point Presentation, one would have to have editing software to convert the audio signal into a digital file (such as MP3 or WAV).

This leads to the next point, not every CD you can listen to is an audio CD, some are CDs with MP3 files burnt in. You can tell the difference by trying to play an MP3 file on an older or less capable CD player (hint: turn the volume down). These, however, can be put into a Power Point presentation.

You can also create CD-R or CD-RW with two or three different formats. This is mixed mode formatting. You still can’t put the audio or video CD portion into your presentation, but you can point your presentation to the track which will invoke Windows Media Player to play the track and switch back when it is done.

Burning CD-Rs

Because CD-RWs depend on specific packet-writing schemes that might not always be available and because covering all the variety of CD-RW packet-writing programs would be of limited interest, while covering just one or two would not do the subject justice, I will focus on burning CD-Rs. Specifically, I will look at the burning methods employed in Windows XP. The method in XP is not best (it lacks some features and is not as flexible as some third-party programs) but it covers the basics, almost all the lab computers run XP, and it is likely that XP is what you have running your computer as well. We will look at two ways Windows XP copies or burns files to CD. These methods depend on whether you are using XP in standard mode or classic mode. If you don't know the difference, you are likely using the standard mode in XP.

Burning in standard mode

Start by putting a CD-R in the drive. XP will then check to see whether the disk is blank or not. If it is blank it will bring up a selection window much like the one you see on the right. Incidentally, if the disk is not blank, this window will not pop up. If you have other programs capable of burning data, music, or video to CD (such as Media Play, Real Player, or perhaps a CD burning program that came with your computer). What you will see is an option to open the CD in the Windows Explorer. You may choose either close this window by canceling or select one of the programs and clicking on the OK button. For purposes of this page we are going to select the Windows Explorer (although canceling will work just fine too). After selecting Windows Explorer (which looks a lot like My Computer), we will minimize it and come to it later.

Copying the CD At this point you can now open My Computer and navigate to where you saved your files. Remember, you cannot write directly to the CD-R in XP, you must copy the files from one location to another. In this case the files are located in a folder called My Pictures. From here go through the following steps.

Select the file or files you wish to copy (that is to say burn) to CD-R with a single mouse-click. You can select multiple files by holding down the control key while clicking on the file.
When you click on the file or files you wish to copy the left-hand plane of the window will change to reveal new options. One of these options is "Copy this File."
When you click on the option to copy a file a new window will pop up. This window asks for the destination for the file. Depending on what you have, choose either the CD-R drive or the CD-RW drive.
Once this is done click the Copy button.

Now, Standard Burning Window have you burned the CD? Well, no you haven't. What you have done is create an image that will be burned to CD. As soon you clicked the Copy button a small bubble should have popped up near the clock from the lower right-hand corner of your screen saying that you have files ready to be written to the CD. At this point, open Microsoft Explorer window for the CD-R (the one we had earlier minimized). You will notice there are now faded-out icons corresponding to the files you had just asked to have copied. Also notice that the files have a small down arrow. These indicate that the files are ready to be written. Also notice that on the left-hand panel under "CD Writing Tasks" there is an option called "Write these files to CD." Clicking this option will burn the files to your CD-R by way of a wizard. The wizard will ask for the name of your disk. By default it used the current date for the name of the disk, but you can call the disk anything you like. After that it will burn the files to the CD. This can take anywhere from several seconds to fifteen minutes, depending on the size and number of files you are trying to burn. When it is done, the wizard will eject the CD. Now you have burned your files to CD.

Burning in Classic Mode

Classic Classic Mode Burning mode starts out the same selection window as standard mode. The basic difference is that classic mode lack the left-hand panels that are found in standard mode. Those who use classic mode would not be bothered by this because Windows has long had a way to copy and paste files. The two basic methods are "drag-and-drop" where one selects a file from one location and then drags it to another or "copy-and-paste," where one selects a file (or files) copies the files to the clipboard (normally by pressing <ctrl><c>) and then pastes in the new location (again with a control-key function, this time <ctrl><v>). When you open the CD-R Window in the Windows Explorer under Class Mode, you will notice that everything looks about the same, except that the left-hand plane is either missing altogether or it does not have list of tasks. In this case you must choose to burn the files to CD from the File menu. After that the the process is identical.

A Final Note: Whenever you are copying files from one computer to another, make sure that the file types are compatible with the programs you are going to use. For instance, if you use MicrosoftWorks in your room, you should be aware that you may have trouble opening the files in the Labs since they use Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, etc.). The best thing to do is to save your work in a compatible file type (say Word or rich-text format). This can be done by going to the File menu in the program you composed the document in and choosing "Save As" rather than "Save." From there choose the file format you want.

Comments may be sent to Jimm Wetherbee at jimm@wingate.edu
Updated: 2/25/08