Performing a backup:

1. Start Seagate BlackArmor Backup
2. Choose Backup and Restore in the lower area of the sidebar and the Create backup task item will be selected by default.
3. Select what type of data you want to back up.
   
   Seagate BlackArmor Backup offers you the following backup types:
   My Computer (image backup of any set of disks/partitions)
   My Data (file-level backup of any set of files, folders, or an entire file category)
   System State (file-level backup of system files, drivers, etc.)
   My E-mail (file-level backup of Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft Outlook Express, and Windows Mail settings and messages).
   My Application Settings (file-level backup of Windows applications settings)

   Selecting a backup type starts the Backup Wizard, which will guide you through the steps of creating a backup task.

4. When the Backup Wizard screen appears, select the data you wish to back up (in case of choosing the System State, this step will be omitted).   
   
   

   My Computer - select the disks or partitions to back up.
   My Data - select the file category(s) to back up: documents, finance, images, music, and video.
   My Application Settings - back up custom settings of Windows applications.
   It is important to note that the program backs up only your settings, and not the application executable files. If an application seems to malfunction or ceases to run, reinstall it using the last updates and then recover your settings from the backup.
   My E-mail - Seagate BlackArmor Backup offers a straightforward way to back up messages, accounts and settings for Microsoft Outlook 2000, 2002, 2003, 2007, Microsoft Outlook Express, and Windows Mail.

5. Selecting the target archive location.
   Select the destination location for the backup and specify the archive name. If a Seagate BlackArmor DAS is detected during the first start, it will be used as the default backup location

After selecting the archive location and naming the backup archive to be created, you have completed all the required steps for a backup task and this is confirmed by the fact that the Summary button becomes selectable. All the remaining steps are optional and in many cases you may omit them and just click Summary and then Proceed on the Summary page. For example, when you want to proceed with backup right away, you can omit the Scheduling step. If you do not want to exclude any files from the backup, you can omit the Source files exclusion step. When you want to use the default backup options, you can omit the Backup options step, and so on.