Use of External Drives

[Mr-H]

I bought a WD 500gb ‘My Passport’ to use as an external memory as E drive (one which I could use as a memory store and which would retain all of the music I have currently on my C drive which at 250gb is filling up). The first time I did a backup all seemed ok; the second time I thought I’d empty the E drive of the first backup before I did the second. So, stupidly, I deleted everything, including the built-in software (there was no CD provided with the drive). So now I’ve used Start/Control Panel/Backup and Restore to allow W7 to backup the files. Unfortunately the files have been compressed into ‘WinRAR ZIP archive’ , some 656 files in total, with an overall size of 122gb. Yes, I know that I should go back to the WD site and download the files the drive needs, but I was hoping that all of the files on C drive (or at least in the User area) would be copied individually on an ‘as is’ basis and that if I wanted to call up a single file (say an individual music track)I could do so, but this is currently not the case. Is what I want possible? How please?

[AlBags]

If a file is compressed into a RAR archive (or a zip) you can open the archive, R Click on the file and extract it to another place, yes.
I would personally MOVE My Docs to the backup drive .. and make sure all music, etc was in it (within My Music Folder)

[AlBags]

Backing Up is not the same as using a storage partition.
If you want to backup the whole drive (onto your WD Passport) use DriveImage XML to write a recoverable image. This can be loaded in case of problems with existing OS or used to reinstate any individual files.

[Mr-H]

Thanks Al, can I just confirm - are you saying to use E as the main/only storage drive, leaving C for programs etc? In other words, change the 'save' preferences etc? (sorry to sound so igorant!)

[AlBags]

I always keep the whole My Docs on another partition (or drive) away from the OS anyway .. AND a backup onto that partition for the OS with D Image in image form.
My Docs/R Click on folder/Move .. scroll to location .. and move all docs.
This will become invisible in it's operation to the OS. It will look the same as before .. but My Docs is just on another drive/partition.