Well, Jim - I have a 3 hard drives and back-up important stuff on one to another fairly frequently. Around monthly I also back up everything on desktop and 2 laptops to an external USB 500GB hard drive (around £50-£60 to buy). Hopefully my risk is minimized! There are on-line back-up services you can use as well. Back-up to CD is pretty much out of the question now with hard drives the size they are, and likewise DVDs (.....and then I go and buy a bigger hard drive

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