| First, use the
mouse and left click on Start in the lower left corner of the screen.
Then right click on Explore. A screen will appear that has
two main parts. On the left is the Folder Tree. On the right are the files
contained in which ever folder is selected on the left - in the Folder Tree. On the
right you will also see folders that are within the folder selected on the left. You may
also notice the Address Bar just above the two main areas. That's useful to let you
know what drive and folder you're looking at. |
|
| Let's look just at
the Folder Tree for now. Notice how there are + and - signs next to some of the
drives and folders. A + sign means that there is another folder within that folder.
Click the + sign and the folder will "expand" to show the folder beneath
it. As long as there is a + sign, there's a another folder. See why they call
it a tree? A - sign simply means the folder is expanded showing the folder beneath.
Click the - sign on the left of the folder and it will "contract" and a +
sign will take it's place.
In our example, click all the - signs that you see. This will completely contract
the tree. See the example on the right. |
|
| As you can see in
the previous example, not all the items in the Folder Tree are actual folders. At
the top most level, there are a couple of things that are better called "items".
Click on the item "My Documents". That's actually a folder where
Microsoft likes to put most of the data files used by it's programs. Notice that
"My Documents" becomes highlighted with white letters on a blue background.
(Your colors could be different if you changed your color scheme!) On the
right side of the screen you can see a couple more folders, some Word documents and some
other data files. These are the files we want to copy to the USB drive. |
|
| On the right side
of the screen, left click one time on the first thing on the list. In our example
it's a folder called "My Music". Be careful that you only click once with
the left mouse button, otherwise you'll find yourself where these directions don't make
sense. Now hold the Shift key down on the keyboard. While holding it down,
left click on the last item in the list. In the example, that's a document called
"Western Corporate.doc". If you did it right, everything should be
highlighted with white letters on a blue background. |
|
| When everything is
highlighted with white letters on a blue background, we say those items are
"selected". These "selected" items, both folders and files, are
going to be copied to the USB drive. While they're selected, click on Edit on the
toolbar at the top, then come down and click on Copy. You'll notice that the little
picture in front of each item will dim in appearance. And we haven't really copied
them anywhere yet. The actual copying takes place at the end of the next series of
steps. |
. |
| The second step
begins by going to the Folder Tree and single click on My Computer. Notice that it
expands automatically when you click on it, and several items appear in the screen on the
right. |
|
| Look at the screen
on the right. Among the items are a number of "drives" as well as a couple
of folders. Depending on what storage devices are installed in your computer, you
will see different items in the screen. The drives are easy to identify because they
have a letter beside them, on the right, in parenthesis. Here's the trick.
Your USB drive can have a name that is different from anyone else. And the
"drive letter" can be different. The clue is the Type. Typically, a
USB drive will say "Removable Disk" next to it. In our example, the drive Name
is "USB" and the letter is "E:". To continue our lesson, click on
the Removable Disk that corresponds to your USB drive. In our example it's "USB
(E:)". When you do, the screen on the right will show the files that are on the
USB drive. Right now there are no files on the drive. Also, when you click on
the Removable Disk it will become highlighted. |
|
| The last step is
to click on Edit, at the top in the Toolbar. The click on Paste. You should
see a smaller screen that shows the files copying from My Documents to the USB drive. |
|
| Here's something
important to keep in mind. If you have a file on the USB drive that has the same
name as one you're copying from My Documents, the computer will ask if you want to
overwrite the existing file. Since we're using the USB drive as a backup, it's
likely that we've done this before and copies of the files are already there. The
answer is yes we want to overwrite the files, so click on "Yes" or
"Yes to All". |
|
| When the files are
finished being copied, you will see a screen showing the USB drive. The files will
all be highlighted. See the example at the right. |
|
