If you do not back up your data frequently, and keep the backups in the same building as the computer, everything you have ever done on your computer can be irretrievably lost due to theft, fire, or other disasters. Backing up data is one of the most important and yet neglected thing you should do.

Most backup programs only backup data files because with the rare exception of "portable" programs, you can't just copy programs into windows from a backup, as you could in the old days, before Windows

You can backup your files by manually copying them to a flash drive, external hard or SSD drive, or other media. This limits backups to the size of the backup media so all of your data will probably not be included in the backup. Also, my experience with clients has been that they often forget to routinely do the backups. Essentially, despite the best of intentions, this is not a reliable system.

Using a backup program is more more reliable as they can be configured to backup at a specific time interval (usually a specific time every day) or to continuous backups whenever you save a new or changed file.

Backup programs can backup either to an external hard drive, another computer on your local network (not recommended) or online (to the cloud). I strongly recommend backups to both an external drive AND to the cloud.

To protect against a hard or SSD drive failure mirror/imaging backup software such as Acronis or ToDo Backup can create exact copies of your drive.. With an imaging backup, your hard drive is backed up as an exact image of the drive. This advantage of an imaging backup is that if your hard drive dies, you can replace the hard drive, boot from a special disc, and restore the image to the new hard drive - and within an hour or two you will be looking at your computer exactly as it was when the last imaging backup was made - typically less than 24 hours earlier. Some of the online backup systems, such as iDrive and NovaBackup, offer both online and image backups, although image backups are usually only to a local hard drive. Mirror/image backups are all or nothing, as you can't just restore a program from these backups, you can only recreate your dead drive onto a new drive in its' entirety..

You can always reinstall your applications (programs) and then restore your data. It is important, however, to know where your data files are so that none are forgotten. The following are some suggestions regarding data backup.

• Keep all of your data in folders that are within the My Documents folder. This way, you can select the My Documents folder and know that almost all of your data will be backed up. Whenever you install a new program, find out where the default location for saving files is and if necessary, change it to a folder within the My Documents folder.

• Locate your My Favorites folder and make sure it is included in the backup. This way, all of the internet favorites will not be lost.

• Locate your email and calendar files. If you use Outlook or Outlook Express as your email application, the files are usually in a file with the extension .PST at the end of the name. Use the search feature in Windows to find these files.