A few weeks ago, I decided to reinstall Windows XP onto my computer. That is, wipe everything and put it all back on again. This dramatically improves system performance, and I am very familiar with the process from the beginning to end.

After backing up my important data (such as my Microsoft Outlook emails and contacts, Desktop, etc), I decided to save space on my backup hard drive by leaving the My Documents folder on a spare internal hard drive. After the long 2 hr process of installation, I discovered that Windows had been installed on the spare internal drive (My Documents). I realised that there was no way of retrieving the information.

But fortunately, my files had been backed up the last time I reinstalled the operating system (about a month or two before). However, since my backup hard drive had almost reached its capacity, I had begun to delete many large files and folders. So I had deleted my previous backups as well.

I did a quick search on the web, and found a program called [1] Recover My Files. At first glance the website looked a little suspicious, but [2] SiteAdvisor told me that it was OK so I downloaded it. It searched my backup hard drive (very slowly) and returned a list of every deleted file. I was then able to recover my important documents. Of the 1100 or so files, only about 20 had been corrupted. Luck was on my side.

What did I learn from this exercise? What we have all been told since the dawn of computing. Backup your files. I can’t stress enough how important it is to make a backup. I strongly suggest that you invest in an external hard drive, and backup your data as often as possible. Because what if a virus came and destroyed the lot? What if you accidentally press the “Delete” button? It can and does happen.