Awww, bless her heart. The walking is good for her to heal faster and hurt less, so its good she wanted her walk. I hope she does well, what a darling old lady she is. I laugh at my Whippets idea of "routine". I swear if I do something twice, to them its set in stone and we're going to do it that way all the time if its something they really like. hugs, Karen

I would certainly use an external hard drive for back ups. In fact I have just swapped my hard drives around to do that. But it will be for an Acronis image of each of my 3 computers, not necessarily for personal data. Although that might also be done. Besides my backup images of the other drives I keep up to date anti virus, firewalls and spyware programs on my external drive so if friends get into trouble I have those programs at hand to install if they do not have then already.

backing up your files and data at the very least is very smart, should you have a hard drive failure or your data get corrupted you would lose it if it is not backed up, burning to cd is one way to do that, but getting a stand alone usb hard drive is another way. They usually have a large capacity so can hold a lot of stuff. I have a 500Gig seagate freeagent pro . you basically just plug it into your usb port on the pc and your pc will recognize it as another drive, you can then just move files back and forth to it from your pc. That makes is very easy to put all your pictures and stuff that takes up a lot of room on it rather than on your pc hard drive, keeping your pc less cluttered and easier to maintain. You currently have 22.2GB free left of the 39GB that is your hard drive. One reason you do not want your pc hard drive to get terribly full is that it can not run some of the stuff you want to be able to run for maintenance if it is too full for example a defrag, and setting system restore points. As to do you need one that would be up to you. I would say if you do not use some method of back up currently for your files and data then you should be. I use various methods, I have the usb hard drive, I also use thumb flash drives, cd and dvd and I have an online storage locker I can store stuff online. So hopefully if something drastic happens I can salvage the stuff that was really important. You can also get image programs that will take a snap shot of your entire hard drive including the operating system, you can store that image file on the external hard drive or flash drive, and from that you can quickly recreate your entire hard drive, I have Acronis True Image.

Dee can - Please DO NOT trigger a Format. It deletes everything on the drive (including Windows). If you reformat your PC's hard drive, it'll be useless to you and won't start again until a new operating system installation is done. It shouldn't be something you need to do. raven - I disagree with your suggestion about the advisability of having a HDD image. Use of same would seem to be well beyond the ability of most people who visit this forum. To avoid problems and inconvenience, my first suggestion is that everything important should be backed up and, correspondingly, unimportant files needn't be backed up. Many users have nothing but unimportant files. A simple emailer and web surfer likely has nothing that needs to be backed up. My second suggestion is to avoid problems by using proper tools and practices. (Many of the tools and practices I've seen recommended in various threads in this forum I don't agree with) My third suggestion - if a problem is encountered that the user doesn't know how to deal with, find a service provider or someone knowledgeable to help you. For "seasoned citizens", younger family members may be useful for this. Write down on a piece of paper (yes, a piece of paper) the programs you use and the obscure websites you like and have bookmarked. Other than important data files (photos, music, correspondence), EVERYTHING ELSE on your PC can be reinstalled, re-downloaded, and otherwise replaced. If your PC is old, struggling, or otherwise deserving of a proper burial, buy a new one. They're cheaper than ever, and old your old PC may not be worth the cost or effort to resuscitate. Good luck to all. With a first rate antivirus program, all that's left for you to do is to know where you go and know what you open. With that and absent being very unlucky, you won't have any problems.