Oh the perils of collecting those precious photos on your PC for years, only to have your hard drive crash one day, and not have made a SINGLE BACKUP COPY of any of your priceless pictures. Well, now is the time to backup your hard drive. A few simple steps will set you on your wayso lets not think about it anymore: lets DO it.

There are several ways you can backup your PC data.

1.) CDs and DVDs are one of the simplest ways to go. Its a very simple process to pop in a CD-ROM and burn a copy of your important information, but theres a catch: youll have to be disciplined enough to do this on a regular basis. Youll also have to burn new CDs weekly in order to keep up with the new information youve just stored on your PC for the past week and this can get rather expensive as you go out to buy new CD-ROMS every month. So there are other solutions

2.) Another way to go, is to purchase an external hard drive. You can drag and rop all of our new data onto your hard drive and it will replace the old data. This way you dont have to burn new CDs or DVDs for each backup. However, you still have to be disciplined enough to remember to do this each weekso there is yet another solution.

3.) If you have Windows XP Professional, you can use what is called Microsoft Backup, a utility that lets you create backups of data that you choose and be able to run these backups on schedule. The only disadvantage to using Microsoft Backup is that you must use your backups with the same operating system. For example, if your Windows ME hard drive crashed, you couldnt use a backup you created there in Windows XP.

So, there you have several ways you can backup your PC data and be safe. Keep in mind that despite the disadvantages of CD-ROM and DVD backup (purchasing new CDs and performing backups regularly), you cant beat the fact that CDs and DVDs last for years and are transportable, which is great for traveling.

If youre anything like me, you probably have a whole slew of information stored on your PC, much of which is personal in nature (such as family pics), and most of which is business-related (which is crucial to your business success).

Being sure that you select at least one method of backup is your first step. Your second step is to make sure you follow through with this plan each and every week.

Remember, consistency is key.

Back up your data, and save your life!