Losing information on a computer is a common occurrence and is often caused by a power surge, lightning and sometimes the system just fails on its own so it is important to regularly back up your files. If you back up your files and keep them in a separate place you can get some of your information back, if not all. Anything you cannot replace easily should be on the list of files to be backed up. Some ideas of things to that should be backed up are: financial records, photographs, any purchased software, music, personal projects, and any web bookmarks. External hard disk drives, CDs, and DVDs are the most common ways of backing up your files.