I think in the end I'd rather just get a fireproof box, that way I could put my HDDs and camera in it.

Too bad fireproof safes are really heavy.

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2011/10/17/best-wishes-to-project-zomboid/

I tried to setup Backup on Windows 7 and it kept giving me an error. All I really need to backup is my AppData and pictures/documents, but it said something about how it can't find a file.

Did you limit your shadow storage/system restore space? It's possible there are locked files in your AppData folder so Windows trys using shadow storage, but if you limited that it'll kick up errors about not being able to find it. It's really common when you back up right when a file is being deleted/moved. I used to get that error a lot in NTBackup on Windows Server.

Are you just backing up the AppData folder entirely? If so you're backing up a lot of temporary folders for various programs, which could be the cause of the files being moved and deleted that causes the error. In fact, I think Windows backup itself may use a temp folder in AppData to temporarily store files while backing up. This is why it's best to back up %appdata% (which is just the roaming folder). Besides a few bad apples, programs don't store settings or changes in local or locallow.

Alternatively you can use CrashPlan, which is better in quite a few ways than Windows Backup, specifically about retention of versioning.

Same thing happens if I try and backup only my documents/music/pictures library. I'll try crashplan instead then.

Hmm. That does sound odd, can't say I've ever experienced it with Windows Backup. I know some programs, like Rainmeter, write stuff to the My Documents folder that may be causing the issue if you have a limited shadow storage.

That may not be a good sign. It gave me errors like that when my hard drive was going bad (so some Windows files were corrupting/were in bad sectors).
But yeah, try another program...sometimes they'll work instead. I used Casper...it's not free tho (trial period/then purchase).

If your AppData and such aren't humongous, you can just copy them manually to another drive. I use Win Backup largely to make a mirror/system image to retain registry and program settings etc. in case of hard drive failure. My O/S drive is largely "clean" of anything but installed programs (that rarely change) and I keep/use a 2nd internal HDD for certain operations/file storage and that one is manually sorted thru/copied/updated constantly.

There's even a way to copy everything from Steam so if you have to reformat, you don't have to re-download all your games again. Worked great - at least if you don't have tons of Steam games.

I don't use backup software. All I need is a external hard drive and put what ever files need backing up in there. Including game mods so I don't have to look for them and download them again.

If you're doing it with just copy and paste how do you:

1. Know the files aren't corrupting in transit?

2. How do you know you aren't copying corrupted files?

3. How do you stop the human error factor (as in: you make a change, copy it over, only to realize you need the original)?

Backup software that does proper versioning solves all these problems. You're already far ahead of the curve, not to mention using software makes your life easier by meaning you don't have to do it manually anymore as well as keeping a list of files to back up so you don't have to worry about forgetting.

1. I check them first then copy and paste and check them again.

2. If that file is corrupted I delete that file and do the copy and paste. If that dose not work that means one or two things. The disk drive that I put file is broken or the cable needs replacing. I leave that file where I put it in the first place until I get a new disk drive or get that cable replace. With the bad disk hard drive I get a new one and hope those files are fine. Then I get someone with the right software to transfer the file from one drive to the other. I know it cost much but it will be worth it. If the hard disk drive that where I put my back up file are fine by clicking one of the other file and its fine well its the cable and I get it replace.

3. I don't trust 3rd party programs. Like I don't trust mod managers to install my mods for games. I do it manually. All files comes in different names. I keep my files whilst others deletes them. When I get time I put them in folders. In those folders there are 20 different files just in case one file is better then the other.

I can understand not trusting software to do automatic backups, but to not trust backup software period doesn't make any sense. It's nothing like mod managers at all. Backup software can do things not easily done by a human in that it can run checksums of your files to guarantee integrity (though not all backup software does this). I don't know how many files you are talking about, but doing a manual check of each file isn't feasible when talking about a bunch of files, but for software they can do it by just comparing the old to the new and then maintaining both original and changed copies (something you don't seem to be doing with your current backup, this is known as versioning) meaning if somehow the software does goof, you can just use the older version.

That said, if you are set on your current method, I'd suggest looking into ZFS for your backup's file system. ZFS can do automatic checksums and fight off bitrot, so would perfectly compliment your current backup strategy and doesn't involve the use of software (ZFS is a filesystem like NTFS or FAT, in case you didn't know). Granted, to do so you'd need to set up a NAS, most likely (FreeNAS can do ZFS).

That reminded me to re-read http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=94143 for my next backup, which is gonna be today or tomorrow. I'm trying the TeraCopy & ExactFile combo.

I've just been using 7-Zip's Copy function up until now, I have no idea if that does any file verification.