If Something Goes Wrong

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Develop good computing habits

3A Windows® Explorer window will open for the blank CD. This window will be referred to as “the CD window.”

4Open a second Windows® Explorer window by clicking Start, then My Computer.

5In this second window, browse to the files you wish to back up. Click the down-pointing arrow at the upper-right of the window (to the left of the Go button) to see a list of locations that includes My Documents—a likely location of your data.

6Drag and drop folders or individual files from this window into the CD window. If the files do not immediately appear in the CD window, press F5 (or click View, Refresh) to prompt the Windows® operating system to display them.

NOTE Documents and other data files that you create as you work are typically stored in the My Documents folder. You may also wish to back up other important data files stored elsewhere on your hard disk drive, for example:

❖E-mail files and settings—for Outlook, Outlook Express, or other e-mail applications. Visit the vendors’ Web sites (www.microsoft.com, for example) for detailed instructions.

❖Newsgroup files and settings—for Outlook Express or other newsgroup readers. Visit the vendors’ Web sites for detailed instructions.

❖Other data files. If you do not find an application’s data files in any of the folders within the My Documents folder, check the application’s options or preferences settings to discover the locations of the files.

7When you have finished copying files to the CD window, click File, Write these files to CD.

8A CD Writing Wizard will appear, prompting for a name for the CD. You may accept the default name, or enter a new (more descriptive) name. Click Next to continue.

9The CD Writing Wizard will now write the selected files to the CD. It is best not to use the computer for any other tasks during this operation, to avoid interrupting the process.

10Finally, click Finish.

The CD will be ejected. It should contain all of the files you have selected, but you may easily verify this by placing the CD back into the drive, and viewing the list of files.