You bought a computer a couple of months back. Everything runs well until suddenly one fine day, Internet Explorer stops loading Websites, Outlook Express refuses to start, there are repeated file errors and system crashes and... you feel your world coming apart! What do you do then? Well, the least you can do is take some preventive/precautionary measures before any of this happens, so the inevitable Windows reinstall is less painful...

Divide and Rule
Given the size of an average hard drive on current PCs, we often take our data for granted, and then repent when we lose data! The first thing you must do after buying a new PC, is make sure the hard drive is partitioned. Ask your vendor to make one partition for the Windows install, and another partition where you will store data. Get in the habit of storing your important data on a separate storage-specific partition, and not the system partition where you have installed your operating system. This will solve most of your headaches when the system fails because you know that even if you have to format the drive, or reinstall the operating system, your data is safe on the other partition.

Now that you have assigned a separate partition where you are going to store all backups of any vital data that you might have, your task becomes much easier. The next step is identifying which files and folders are to be backed up. This is tricky because everyone has different backup requirements, depending on the variety/number of applications they use. Generally, one would want to backup emails, the Outlook Address Book, and the 'Favourites' and the 'My Documents' folders etc.

Emails are usually of prime importance to most people, and you'd be well advised to make sure you don't lose any of your important mails. By default, Outlook Express stores all your mails in 'C:\WINDOWS\Application Data\Identities' (assuming the Windows 9x is installed on 'C:') and with Windows 2000\XP, Outlook Express stores all your emails in 'C:\Documents and Settings\Username\Local Settings\Application Data\Identities', where user name stands for the person logged in or Windows login name. Outlook Express allows you to choose your own store folder for all your emails. To do this, open Outlook Express and in the menu bar select 'Tools?Options'. In the options menu, press the Maintenance tab where you can click on the Store Folder button to change the default setting. Apart from your emails, you should also backup you're Favorites folder, which sits in the Windows directory.

To backup your Address Book in Windows 9x, go to 'C:\Windows\Application Data\Microsoft\Address Book' and in Windows 2000\XP, go to 'C:\Documents and Settings\Username\Application Data\Microsoft\Address Book'. Here you will find a '.wab' file, which you simply need to copy to your backup folder to backup your Address Book. If you are using some software or contact manager other than Outlook, then create backups by simply exporting the database file, which can usually be done from the 'File' menu of most apps.

The Last Word
There are a couple of good backup tools that automate the entire backup process for you. They also allow you to schedule and even restore backups. Outlook Express Backup Wizard 1.0 is best for backing up your emails, Address book, and Favorites etc. TaskZip 2.10 and FolderBackup 2.5 are also powerful freeware backup tools which you might want to try using.

Do all of this, and you'll thank us when the blue screen of death strikes your PC next time...!