Always back up your files, it's the most basic of the basics. I admit to becoming complacent sometimes, say, when I'm using a new PC. You just don't expect a three month old PC to suffer total hard drive failure...until it does. I kept telling myself that I'd buy some blank DVDs to back up my files, but I didn't, and lost everything I've done since October 2008 when my PC suddenly stopped detecting the hard drive. The master files for the last four paintings I posted on DA are gone, along with the first chapter of my new novel and two unfinished musical compositions.

In a way it's lucky that this did happen after only three months, as I still had backups of everything else I've done on the hard drives of my old PC. I don't feel too lucky though. As you can imagine, my reaction could best be summed up as: [link]

I would like to mention how impressed I've been with Ebuyer, the online retailer where I bought my PC. Not once did they try to pass the buck to the manufacturer. They picked up the busted machine by courier at no charge, and quickly approved a replacement when they couldn't fix it. They even sent the faulty hard drive back to me when I explained that it contained vast quantities of work created under my copyright. Now it's a question of whether I feel like spending a couple of weeks' pay on sending it to a data recovery company.