back up b4 install necessary?

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Guest

I am attempting to install Windows XP Service Pack 2. It advises me to back
up all files before installing. Is this necessary? I have sooooo many files
and not alot of time. Some files are backed up already, but not all. If
nothing bad will happen, I would like to skip that step, but need advice.
thanks in advance. leigh
 
leigh said:
I am attempting to install Windows XP Service Pack 2. It advises me to back
up all files before installing. Is this necessary? I have sooooo many files
and not alot of time. Some files are backed up already, but not all. If
nothing bad will happen, I would like to skip that step, but need advice.
thanks in advance. leigh
Click to expand...

SP2 is a major upgrade of the operating system. Is your system capable of
supporting the update? You can find out on the SP2 update pages. Yes, you
should most definitely back up all your data before installing Service Pack
2. You should be doing periodic backups anyway, and if you aren't . . .
Shame On You!
 
It's only necessary if the upgrade fails. Do you know if it's going to fail
or succeed?
 
Sounds to me like you will have even less time if you end up loosing
them all. It's entirely up to you, 99.96% of the time things go
reasonably well, the other .04% of the time we see people here with sob
stories of how they lost all their files and desperately pleading for
help recovering their files. Of course in these circumstances almost no
one but professional data recovery firms can help. What you are asking
us to do is to reassure you that nothing bad will happen, we can only
reassure you by saying that nothing will go bad unless something does go
bad. To me it's like crossing a seldom used country road, even if you
only see a car once a month, if a car drove by yesterday will you still
look in both directions before you cross the road today?

John
 
was about halfway thru John John's response, my electricity went off, and of
course, my computer screen went black. My heart literally skipped a beat.
Spooky thing when you are reading about unfortunate crashes and losing all
your files....I am now in the process of backing up my files. Thanks guys!
 
leigh said:
was about halfway thru John John's response, my electricity went off
Click to expand...

Yes, I have the power to do things like that... ;-)

, and of
course, my computer screen went black. My heart literally skipped a beat.
Spooky thing when you are reading about unfortunate crashes and losing all
your files....I am now in the process of backing up my files. Thanks guys!
Click to expand...

It just goes to show how the least expected things can turn what is
supposed to be a simple easy task into a nightmare!

John
 
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