Back up? We don't need no steenkin' backup!

Finishing a computer repair that started several weeks ago. Belongs to a nice person and she learned how to back up her data when we did a partial recovery for the purpose of gleaning important data. When was the last time you backed up your important data? Don't know? Don't know how to backup? Learn. Most new computers come with a CD-burner type device. Great backup tool. Read your manual and click the help button. Don't come crying to me if you lose precious data such as baby's first steps pictures, final composition of the next great American novel, copies of the best tunes written since the Beatles, critical work data, etc.

Mike Lin has a great backup tool called RapidBackup. If you don't like Microsoft backup try Mike's. If you have a CD-burner use the program that came with it and copy to CDRs or CDRWs(they can be overwritten 1000 times). The most important thing is to get a copy of that which is valuable off that personal confuser and somewhere safe. Most will ignore this and wonder why it can't be recovered when they crash their computer the NEXT time. So, if you don't follow my suggestions it's OK with me. Just don't whine when you accumulate 3 or 4 bench hours of time in attempts at recovering data. Not backing up is a very expensive mistake. This is not a warning, it's a statement of pure truth.

User, n. The word computer professionals use when they mean "idiot."
-Dave Barry