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If Something Goes Wrong
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Backing up your data to CDs with Windows XP
For most of us, by far the most valuable component of our
computer system is the data we have created with it, and
stored on its hard disk drive. Since problems with either
hardware or software can make the data inaccessible or even
destroy it, the next most valuable component of your
computer system may be a recent backup of your data.
Fortunately, Windows XP offers a convenient way to back up
your important data files to CDs, a relatively high-capacity
storage media. No additional software is required. Most of
the CD and DVD drives built into recent Toshiba portable
computer models can write to (or ‘burn’) as well as read from
CDs. External CD and DVD writers are also widely available.
Follow these steps to back up files in the My Documents
folder to one or more CDs:
1 Put a blank CD-R (CD-recordable) disc into the computer’s
CD or DVD drive.
2 A menu of options will appear. Select Open writable
CD folder using Windows Explorer, and click OK.
3 A Windows Explorer window will open for the blank
CD. This window will be referred to as “the CD
window.”
4 Open a second Windows Explorer window, by clicking
Start, then My Computer.
5 In this second window, browse to the files you wish to
back up. Click the down-pointing arrow at the upper right
of the window (to the left of the Go button) to see a list of
locations that includes My Documents—a likely
location of your data.
6 Drag and drop folders or individual files from this
window into the CD window. If the files do not
immediately appear in the CD window, press F5 (or click
View, Refresh) to prompt Windows to display them.