Back up your data

Having a copy of your critical files is itself a very important aspect of your computer safety. There are several reasons, which can cause losing of your data: a computer virus attack, a natural disaster, a program bug, a wrong user command, etc.

However, even though data storage devices have been improving constantly during several last years, the most common problem that causes data losing is still hard disk failures. If you have noticed that your disk is not in good condition, you probably need to review and change your backing up strategy. Look through your files and evaluate those you need to include into your backups. Backup the most important files more frequently. Place your backups to CDs or to an off-site storage.

If you use Hard Drive Inspector under Windows NT 4.0 / 2000 / XP you may use NTBackup.exe utility, which is located in "Windows\System32" folder. This program creates compressed backups of local or network files to hard drives, CD's and other removable devices, and so on. This utility supports the command-line interface, and that is why you can use it by setting "Run program on critical changes" option in the "S.M.A.R.T" tab of the "Options" dialog.