Ellie if you only have anti virus you are at risk. I would suggest you get Malwarebytes and SUPERantispyware, both of which are free. These require you to manually update and run scans but they only need doing every one to 3 weeks depending on how conscientious/nervous you are. I never leave my external hard drive connected to the computer. This is both for safety and economy. Connected it is open to attack and also runs all the time. If you have a factory built computer your power supply might be taxed to a degree unless your external drive is self powered. Most today are not self powered I believe. You wrote: If I can't bring my computer up ( that is called a crash or a blue screen) I install my recovery discs first. The CD drive works even if the computer has crashed. There is no real answer to this untill the catastrophic event occurs. You might get clues for days before the event to warn you. There would also be valuable clues in the event of a blue screen of death from the error message displayed. (BSOD) I assume you mean Best Buy replaced a defective hard drive with a new one? What was written on the labels of the disks from BB? That would be a clue as to what they are for. As I noted before recovery disks allow you to take your computer back to the new state it was in when purchased, a backup created on your external drive will return the computer to the state at the time of that backup. Any work saved in between would be lost. You can store your data on the computer itself and back it up to the external drive for protection. Always a good plan to have data you do not wish to lose saved in 2 locations Outlook is generally a part of Microsoft Office although I understand it can be bought as a stand alone program - quite expensive too. One would presume Cobian Backup came with your Go_Flex drive. It is good that you ask these questions but be sure to allow yourself to enjoy the benefit these things can bring you. A computer is only as good as the person sat in front of the keyboard. Urlee and Cat_ky I have no issues with anyone owning more than one computer, I have 6 and all working yet I live alone. But to purchase another computer "just in case" seems rather more than odd to me and a complete waste of money for an item that keeps becoming out of date with alarming regularity. Don expressed it very wisely I think.

well if we look at your actual problem it may be that all you need to do is uninstall your copy you currently have on there now and then do a reinstall from your discs which you have. It could be that something simply got corrupted and a fresh install will fix it right back to how it should be. That would be my first try before buying something else. I use Open Office on all my linux comuters and have Office Professional (not 2007!) on my xp computers, I have had no problems between the 2, you do have the options with Open Office as to which type of file format you want to save in. I would first definitely try to find out just what the problem is with what is on there now before going on. Is it only emailed files is it only to one email is it to all files is it to all emails etc are files not emailed ok?

esteban if you do have java on your pc you need to make absolutely sure you are keeping it updated to the latest version and have removed all the old versions, most of the worst infections these days are coming through java vulnerabilities. To update java go to control panel select java, open the update tab and select to update now. To make sure all old versions are removed use the free javara tool. JavaRa to make sure all of your items are updated so you are not open to infections you can scan your pc with this secunia tool. Secunia Online Software Inspector (OSI) It is extremely important to keep java, flash on all browsers and all adobe products updated.

I am running windows 7 and I have absolutely no problem loading photos on a CD The first step is to load the photos on the computer and save them in "My Pictures" There are numerous ways to load the photos on the computer but I find the simplest way is to pull the memory card out of the camera and insert it in the card reader on the computer. When the window drops down I just hit "copy to computer" Another box will drop down and ask you to input a file name. Input a file name and it will automatically upload all the photos and put them in that file in "My Pictures" Once you have the photos in "My Pictures" insert a blank CD in the drive and a box will come down asking what you want to do with the CD. Hit the box to open a "Data Disc" You then open "my Pictures" and find the file. If you put your cursor on the file, then right click a box will open and your can select "send to" then select the device address for your CD player and it will load the entire file on the CD. If you do not want to put the entire file on the CD open the file and individually select the photos you want, and hit the "send To" then the CD address. I shoot an average of 500 photos a day and after editing I generally put about 150 of those on CD. It takes me about 15 minutes to individually select and load 150 photos. After you are done loading the photos on the CD hit "Start" then hit "Computer" and locate the icon for your CD drive. Put your cursor on the CD drive icon and right click. A box will drop down and you select "Close the Session", another box will drop down and ask you how you want to close it. Select "As A Flash Drive". It will close the CD but leave it open so you can add more photos later or use that CD in other computers.