Backup thru network to another computer

[JadeDragon]

I am in the process of working with a startup/shut down problem and I am trying to back up my computer data to another computer on my home network. I am not one to backup with any regularity, and in this case, not at all. I have two computers using Windows XP and connected by a wired LAN. I made an attempt to back up a few months ago, using the Windows provided backup, waited forever for the computer to create the file, then received an error message that the receiving machine could not receive the file being sent as it was too large for ?? I did not write the message down, damn! Now with a serious problem, I tried to back up again using the same program and selecting a folder called My Backups on the other machine. I got a message that I can not save to that location.
My problem machine is an eMachine with a 182 GB C: drive - 95.4 GB used. The target machine is a Systemax with a 232GB drive - 78.4 GB used. So it seems space is not a problem. The first message seemed to indicate a setting needed to be changed, but since I can't go far enough now to replicate the message, I am stuck. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks, JadeDragon

 

[DelJo63]

Full backups are excessively large and when written to another system, are only
good to recovery user files anyway.
(see www.smbdataprotection.com/WhitePaper.html)


*IF* you want to backup your documents, pictures, music, ...
just backup My Documents\ and any folders you have created that are NOT located
in that folder.

 

[JadeDragon]

It is only my user files and downloaded programs (which would have to be reinstalled) which are being backed up. about 80 GB. As a photographer, I have over 30,000 full res photos in there, they are mostly copied to CD, but I feel they should be backed up to the other computer as a further safeguard