If you have any important data on your PC I can't stress how important it is to keep backups - I've paid the price once and now I always have at least one recent backup

Every day? You lose something important and thats it GONE for good Look and learn> look and learn

Depends on how critical the data is.
That said due to recent problems i have backed up daily to a USB memory stick.
Most drivers & software are backed up to CD/DVD.
But probably dont do as often as i should, just off to do it now!!!

Just done it, cheers for the reminder Ian.

Backup?

Pfffffft...........never never never.
But then I tend to wipe my rigs regularly and start from scratch anyway.

Only important data on my rigs are my crunchy work units.

I prefer the pen and paper technology for important stuff

Everytime I write something I back it up

Especially the photos of my son and his diary. If I lose those I will never forgive myself!

Everything that is important to me is backed up on two or three other drives along with the original in two different locations on my Main drive. Also stuff is on a pendrive and some on a rewritable DVD

I aint taking no chances with stuff like that

I have a backup plan but it keeps getting iinterupted .

Probably not as often as I should

I lost around 80Gb of mp3's and labouriously recorded vinyl once, Western Digital Hard Disk, one month old.

That kinda woke me up to the importance.

All music and DivX movies are on HTPC HDD and a duplicate external disk.

Work stuff; Photos; Publisher files; memos and stuff, I back up to USB sticks about once a week and when they get full I back up to DVD and sometimes CD.

Also use Acronis True Image to back up OS's to external hard disk.

And also back up I-Tunes to DVD's but I only have a 30Gb I-Pod. What happens if you got the 80Gb or 160Gb models? Thatsa lotta DVD's.

Can you actually back up I-Tunes to an exterrnal hard disk? I haven't seen that option.

How to Back Up Your iTunes Music Files

There are several ways you can back up your iTunes music files, but the simplest is to simply make a copy of your entire iTunes folder (the one in Windows’ My Music or in your Mac’s Music folder). You can copy this to an external hard disk, if you have one - if not, we strongly recommend purchasing an external hard disk if you have a lot of music. At under $100, they are relatively inexpensive these days, and you can use one to back up both your music and the rest of your personal files, ensuring that if your computer fails you’ll be protected. If you have an external hard disk, simply drag your iTunes folder to the hard disk to copy all its contents. If your music is stored in another location, drag the folder containing your music files to your external hard disk as well.



http://www.ilounge.com/index.php/ar...d-itunes-music/

Its a realy technical process called drag and drop .

Ok, perhaps I should have expanded upon this.

Anybody can back up a whole bunchof m4a's, easy-peasy.

But within I-Tunes, it being a really crap piece of software, you have to organise every single track into a 'playlist'. These playlists can contain any trax you like but most commonly are albums.

I-Tunes isn't clever enough to recognise albums, only trax so you have to create them yourself.

Usually quite easy but convert an album full of different atistes and you'll be cruising all over the place to get all those trax.

It takes a long time to organise your I-Tunes folder.

Only way you can keep your playlists, as far as I know, is to back up to DVD.

And even then it ain't perfect, I-Tunes will install your backup to a seperate 'folder within itself, all new 'rips' will be in a directory below it. And if you delete the link to your saved stuff, you'll lose the lot.

I-Tunes is rubbish, really, it's a damn shame cos I do actually like the I-Pod a lot. A Creative Zen is probably a better option - simple software.

So, Mr Barb, got another link?

Certainly have old buddy . Was this the sort of thing you were after ??

Most online tutorials make use of iTunes’ ability to burn data disk for music backup jobs. This requires that you have a CD burner and available blank media. This short tutorial requires that you either a.) have an external HD (or iPod) or b.) a second computer to use as temporary storage. If you decide to use an external HD, make sure that it is large enough to store your whole music library. Following this tutorial will allow you to transfer your Window iTunes collection to another computer while retaining your playlists, smart playlists, song ratings, play counts, and last played dates.

http://uneasysilence.com/how-to-bac...windows-itunes/

However I think my first link gave instructions for saving all the itunes crappy info like playlists etc etc aswell .

Let’s start with the files. It may seem strange that there are two files with such similar names, but these files contain different information. The iTunes 4 Music Library file contains the database of all the songs in your iTunes library. It also contains your playlists, your ratings, your play counts, last played dates and more. The iTunes Music Library.xml file contains some of this same information, but is used to provide access to your music to other programs. You need both of these files to use iTunes; however, if they get deleted, iTunes creates new empty files, and only adds to them when you import music. (In other words, if these files are deleted, especially the iTunes 4 Music Library file, your iTunes library will appear empty the next time you open iTunes.)
All that remains is to back up those two iTunes Library files somewhere as well; iTunes doesn’t copy them when you back up your music files. Find a safe place where you can copy them - another CD, for example - and burn them there.

Now, even if your computer crashes and you lose everything, you’ll be able to restore your iTunes library easily. After installing iTunes, drop those two files into the iTunes folder (again, the one located in your My Documents > My Music folders if you are running Windows, or your Music folder (inside your home folder) if you use Mac OS X), and then use your CDs or DVDs to copy all of your music back into the iTunes Music folder.



Hope that helps matey as I know how much of a pain in the ***** loosing all your playlists can be .