BleepingComputer.com: Backing things up?

I've been hearing about a lot of people losing things on their computer when it crashes, and they talk about being sure to back things up. I'm wondering how often I should be backing things up, what things I should be backing up, and how do I back things up.....and what should I back up to? I know that was a mouthful, LOL, but I want to be sure that I'm doing what I should on this computer since it's still fairly new...about a year old almost, and I don't want to end up with a bunch of problems like I did with my old laptop which eventually crashed.

As always, I appreciate the help you all provide here.

Oh, one other thing. I'm wondering what I should do when I post questions and nobody responds to them? Should I repost it, and if so, how long until it's okay to do so?

Thanks again!

Michele

Basically, you backup anything that you don't want to lose if your computer decides it doesn't want to start.
You cannot backup programs, but you can backup the data created with the programs. You can backup documents, pictures, emails, videos, etc. For example, I hadn't backed up my wedding photos before my hard drive crashed. The only reason that I'm still alive (my wife would've killed me! is because I hadn't deleted them from the camera - so that was (accidentally) my backup.

As for how often, it depends on how current you want this to be. Systems may die without giving you notice - so the more often you backup, the less chance there is of losing the most recent additions to your files system.

There's a list of free applications for doing this located in this topic: http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/forums/topic3616.html

What should you backup to? Well, that depends on a lot of different things, but the size of the backup is generally the deciding factor. If it's only a little bit, you can backup to a CD/DVD or a flash drive. Large backups may require an external hard drive to contain all the data.

Finally, the most important part of a backup is verification. It doesn't help to run a backup if you can't use it later on. While many programs contain verification routines, you just can't be sure until you actually try to recover the backup. So I suggest checking the backup after it's done to see if you can open those files. You'll get peace of mind knowing that your stuff is saved and accessible in the event of your system not booting.