Toshiba Tecra A8 Backing up your data to CDs with Windows XP, Documents, My Documents, A menu of options will appear. Select, Open writable CD folder using Windows Explorer

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7Your Windows configuration will now be restored to the state it was in when the chosen Restore Point was created.

Backing up your data to CDs with Windows XP

For most of us, by far the most valuable component of our computer system is the data we have created with it, and stored on its hard disk drive. Since problems with either hardware or software can make the data inaccessible or even destroy it, the next most valuable component of your computer system may be a recent backup of your data.

Fortunately, Windows XP offers a convenient way to back up your important data files to CDs, a relatively high-capacity storage media. No additional software is required. Most of the CD and DVD drives built into recent Toshiba portable computer models can write to (or ‘burn’) as well as read from CDs. External CD and DVD writers are also widely available.

Follow these steps to back up files in the My Documents folder to one or more CDs:

1Put a blank CD-R (CD-recordable) disc into the computer’s CD or DVD drive.

2A menu of options will appear. Select Open writable CD folder using Windows Explorer, and click OK.

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.