Do you have a digital camera? Do you store your pictures on your family computer? How about home movies? E-mails from your deployed spouse?

Now, do you keep a backup of the hard drive that stores all of it?

The other night I was watching a movie online via Netflix’s really cool Watch Instantly feature. In the middle of the movie I got an error message. So I called the Netflix customer support number as directed in the error, and the technician told me how to fix it. When I asked what had happened, he told me it was ‘probably just a corrupt file.’

Those words — ‘corrupt file’ — got me worrying about the computer’s hard drive. Sure enough, shortly after I had dealt with the first error, another program failed and a new message popped up telling me Windows needed to run a scan on the hard drive.

I went into panic mode. I don’t backup this computer, a laptop, as often as I probably should. Most of our digital photos and other important family files are stored on a different computer that gets backed up weekly. But there were about a hundred new photos stored on the laptop, and because of the damaged areas on the hard drive, I did lose a couple of them.

I was able to get a new hard drive at the Navy Exchange that copied everything off the damaged hard drive using software included in the package. Then I installed the new drive in my computer, and it was as good as new.

If you’re not the computer genius in your family (and genius is a relative term when you’re talking about computers), get someone to help you. Most communities have local businesses who can help you figure out the back-up process. Best Buy and Circuit City locations also often have people who can help.

If you are inclined to do it yourself, there are a lot of websites that explain how to backup your computer. At a minimum you will need to buy an external hard drive, preferably one that includes automatic backup software. If you really want to be protected, you need two external drives: one for weekly backups at home, and another to keep at your office (or anywhere that’s not your house). Once a month, bring the drive home, do a backup, and then bring it back to the office. This is to protect you in the event of a fire, theft, or some other major disaster in your home.

I was lucky to only lose a couple of photos. Learn from my mistake and start backing up your computer today.