Inside the hard drive are spinning platters

Everyone should have a backup of the files that mean the most to them.

Email files, photographs, favorites can all be backed up to an external device or burned to CD or DVD.

Most hard drives offer up symptoms of there empending doom and we need to listen for this.

If your system takes longer to boot than normal, this is a good time to backup.

If your system drive makes small clicks that you did not hear before, it is imperative that you backup.

If you get a message at boot regarding S.M.A.R.T., definitrly back up.

All of these are signs that the hard drive is going to fail soon. Do not shut the system down. Go buy a stack of CDs, DVDs, or an external drive and copy everything over to the device to save the data.

Inside the drive casing is a motor that spins with a drive head that reads the data. The constant spinning creates heat and heat causes wear. Watch over your system and listen for the hard drive telling you it is going to stop working.