Were you ever an @?

Sounds like a silly question, unless you ever played a "roguelike" game way, way back in the day.  If you know... you know.  If you have no idea what I'm talking about, have you ever played Diablo?  If so, then you've tasted the pure joyness that this style of dungeon crawling game can bring.

What's a Roguelike?

Question:

You may know the feeling.  That sinking feeling you get deep in your gut that tells you something just went horribly, horribly wrong with your computer.  It's usually confirmed when you navigate to your photos, music, or documents folder and find... that... it's... EMPTY.  Or maybe you try to access the file and get some strange error, or your computer locks up, never to be resurrected again.

Because of this type of devastating occurrence, one of the most common questions I get is:  "How should I back up files on my computer?"  You'd think it would be easy, but the truth is that there are a lot of ways to safeguard your digital loot - and I'd like to help make a little more sense of them.