If you create content you care about, then you must back it up so it will not be lost if your computer crashes.
1. You can backup to removable disks (CD-R, DVD-R, or flashdrive).
2. You can backup to an external hard disk (with Norton Ghost).
3. You can use a combination of techniques to further reduce your risk.
When your hard disk crashes the availability of your data can only be assured by restoring from a backup copy.
I can help you configure the backup of your valuable information.
If you create only a few pieces of information you truly don’t want to lose, burning these files onto a CD-R or DVD-R is a reasonable and inexpensive backup technique.
If you have more content than fits easily onto one CD-R (700MB) or DVD-R (4700MB) optical disk, consider regularly copying the files onto a larger flashdrive.
Both of these techniques can also be automated with simple inexpensive software.
The downside of this approach is that it only backs up your data. Your operating system and installed programs will all require re-installation from the source CD’s. This can require 4 or more hours of effort and assumes you can find all of the CD’s.
Of course this technique also requires that you to initiate the back up and insert disks. So attention on your part is needed, up and most of us lack the discipline to backup consistently.
If you have a network of computers, you can of course just copy files between them and hope that they all don’t crash simultaneously. This requires some setup, but is an inexpensive approach.
Alternately, if you are willing to invest $175 you can buy an external hard disk which will make a nightly backup copy of the contents of your primary hard disk.
The upside of this approach is that it requires no user interaction (it is total automated). It also backs up the contents of your entire hard disk, so you won’t accidentally miss an unforeseen critical file. The other upside is that it backs up your operating system and program configuration. Restoration from this format is much quicker than manually reinstalling your operating system and program files.
Norton Ghost offers a good external backup system:
What if your Ghost backup fails? Of course the external drive could fail mechanically. But another possible weakness in a nightly snapshot of your system is that it doesn’t protect against a gradual corruption of your system by say adware or spyware. If you find your system is messed up and you want to restore it to a clean state you would not want to restore yesterday’s snapshot (of this corrupted configuration).
If you were careful enough to create and save a snapshot of your system that you know is clean (from say 6 weeks ago), you could quickly restore the clean configuration of 6 weeks ago and then just recover from your nightly backup any data that has recently changed.
Another option is to buy two external drives as your backup devices. You can take a snapshot of your clean configuration onto drive “A” and stick it on the shelf (or in a safe deposit box), and then you use a second drive “B” for your nightly backup. But it is also more pricey since you have to buy double the hardware.