Hard disks are one of the components in your PC that have a relatively high risk of failure. There are two main reasons for this. Firstly, as they have a number of moving parts - spinning platters, stepping motors and moving armatures - they are prone to failure due to physical wear over a period of time. Secondly, they are quite delicate devices and if your PC or laptop receives undue shock, for example from being bumped or dropped, then your hard disk could be damaged and fail. In fact, it has been said that there are only two types of hard disk - those that have failed, and those that will fail!

In addition to a hard disk physically failing, the operating system on the disk can become corrupted for a number of reasons, e.g. virus or spyware infections, resulting in your data not being accessible.

Whether your hard disk physically fails or it becomes inaccessible due to software corruption, if your data has not been backed up you run the risk of losing it forever. Where your data includes irreplaceable photographs, or important work or college data, this loss can be very distressing.

For this reason, it is in your interest to develop a good habit of backing up your data at appropriate intervals. There are a number of ways of doing this, such as using USB memory sticks, CDs or DVDs or external hard drives. The backup can be done manually or it can be set up on an automatic schedule to create a backup daily, weekly or monthly. What about e-mails and your address book, would you know how to back these up?

PC Medic can help you select the best backup strategy for your needs, whether it is your 30GB music collection, your e-mail messages, your draft thesis or your precious photographs.

Remember, now is the time to consider backing up your data, when your PC is working properly. Don’t wait until it’s too late.