XPBackups

If you use Windows XP Professional, it comes with a straightforward way to backup your files (not the OS) regularly to the HDA.

If you are an XP Home user, the original install disk is needed. Just insert the disk and auto-run should bring up the XP install menu. If this does not happen, open My Computer, right-click the drive that contains the disk, and select AutoPlay. When the install menu comes up, select Perform Additional Tasks. Next select Click Browse this CD. Then, in Windows Explorer, double-click the ValueAdd folder, then Msft, and then Ntbackup. Finally, double-click Ntbackup.msi to install the Backup utility.

To use it, go to the Backup and Restore Center (Start -> All Porgrams -> Accessories -> System Tools -> Backup):

In it, you can configure settings (in "Change settings) to make XP do backups to your HDA daily, weekly or monthly.

All you have to specify is that you want to backup to the network, e.g. to

       \\hda\files\backups\[machine]

Where [machine] is your machine name.

The first time it runs it will back up all your files. Subsequent backups are incremental: only what changed since last backup is saved.

It saves your files in the form of zip files, to they are easy to recover, even without using the XP "Restore Files" program.