Toshiba Portege 4005 User Guide - Page 218

218 If Something Goes Wrong Developing good computing habits Developing good computing habits This section suggests some good habits to develop so you are prepared if things go wrong. Save your work frequently. You can never predict when your computer will lock, forcing you to close a program and lose unsaved changes. Many software programs build in an automatic backup, but you shouldn't rely solely on this feature. Save your work! It only takes a few moments, and it could save you many hours of work to recreate files. On a regular basis, back up the information stored on your hard disk. Files held in your network partition will be backed up for you, but you need to back up any important files that reside only on the Satellite Pro's hard disk. Here are a few ways you can do this:
Use the operating system to copy files to diskettes.
Connect a storage device to the system and use specialized software to copy all your data from hard disk to a tape.
Connect the system to a LAN and copy files to some other location on the network. Some people use a combination of these methods, backing up all files to tape weekly and copying critical files to diskette on a daily basis. If you've added software to your system, you should back up the software as well as the data. If something goes wrong that requires you to format your hard disk and start again, reloading all your software and data from a backup will save time.