'Other than run round the room screaming, you can check if the missing files are in the recycle bin or if you have them as backups.'

Don’t wait until you have a catastrophe. Suzanne Elvidge on how to back up your precious computer data.

Nope, not what you do to pass your driving test, or even what you might want your horse to do, but what you (and I) should really be doing with all the precious data on your computer.

About ten years ago, I had a catastrophic drive crash and lost everything. Fortunately, I had bits and pieces of backups all over the place, and friends of mine had copies of some other pieces, but I’m sure I lost some stories and poems (and like fishing enthusiasts, I’m sure the best ones got away).

I’ve got better about backing up since then — but please don’t wait until you have a catastrophe like me, and start backing up today.

If you are buying a new computer, you could get one with two hard drives (or have one retrofitted to your existing computer) and use one as a backup drive. You could also set the drives up as a RAID (Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks) system. The second drive mirrors the first — data automatically saves to both drives. Some motherboards have RAID capability built in, or you can add a RAID card.

Internal hard drives stay with the computer, so this won’t help if your computer gets stolen or destroyed in a fire. The most secure form of backing up is to use removable media (but not floppy disks, unless you only have TINY amounts of data) and store it somewhere separate to your computer.

Backing up to an external hard drive could be one solution. External hard drive prices have dropped phenomenally of late, and you can get a hard drive for less than £100. But it’s not very convenient to store your hard drive too far away from your computer — you might want to look at a less expensive, more disposable media that you could store with a friend or family member, or keep in a fire safe.

Flash memory

Flash memory holds data without requiring a power source, so is ideal for portable data storage. The simplest to use of these is the USB pens and sticks, which are getting bigger (even as big as 2 GB), and can even be squeezed into a Pez dispenser! These just plug into your USB port and act as another drive.

Your computer may have a built in CD-ROM (compact disk read only memory) or DVD-ROM (digital versatile disk) writer. A CD will store about 700 MB and a DVD 4.7-17 GB. One or two of one or the other of these should comfortably hold everything on your machine.

If you don’t have an internal writer, there are external CD and DVD writers available, connecting via a variety of connections, dependent on what your computer has. There are different forms of CDs and DVDs available, depending whether you want to write one block of data, or keep adding to the disk.

If you run Windows XP and have an internal writer, it’s easy to create a CD.

There are a number of online services providing computer back up, and these keep your data safe, secure, and very distant from your computer. Look out for size of storage and accessibility.

Backup software can help you with the process. This is available to buy, or can be downloaded for free.

What can you do if you haven’t backed up? Other than run round the room screaming, you can check if the missing files are in the recycle bin or if you have them as backups, see if you’ve just lost the files, or use a data recovery utility.

There is a time when it is a good idea to clear off your hard drive, and that’s when you are selling it, giving it away or dumping it (try not to do this).

Just off to back up my computer…

Suzanne Elvidge is the editor of www.echurchactive.net, effective use of technology for the church.