Steve Calvin wrote:

> I learned a while ago (the hard way) that the best course of action is
> to have a second hard drive and clone my main hard drive periodically
> that way if anything happens I can simply switch the hard disk and be
> back up in about 5 minutes.

Amen to that. I use a Maxtor external hard drive connected via USB 2.0.
Copy functions are quick and painless. Plus, it's easy to take it with me.