What's the best way to back up my laptop?

[varicoseveined]

I'm having a few problems with my laptop but have not been able to sort it out (I can't install any programs at all!), despite googling, so I plan to wipe the slate clean and "reset" it to factory settings or something.

So what's the best way to back up my photos, music and documents? An external hard drive? Burn things to CD?

Would help if you gave some idea of amount to backup.

Laptops have moved on from having only 60 MB (like one I had years ago) to 80 GB not long ago, and up to 500 GB, now.

On offer (on Ebuyer.com) at the moment is a 1.5 TB (1500 GB) external drive for about 80 quid, but if you had say 5 GB of files, than a little over a tenner should get you an 8 GB USB stick.

CDs would be fine - 500-600 MB per CD would probably be ideal for collections of photos.

On the music front, depends on quantity and format - also whether items are in iTunes library or not.

www.ebuyer.com/product/178198 80 quid drive for Mac OSX or XP or Vista

Try Amazon (?) for USB sticks, or Google 'shopping' search.
Sorry if that's too vague, just trying to get a measure of the problem.

Agree with all of above (sounding like a worn record here) apart from one thing:

If you are looking for USB sticks, I would also recommend 7dayshop.com, as they supply items under 17quid (?) free from VAT as they are in the Channel Islands.

Yep an external drive is good. I have a 1Click 1TB drive. Holds loads, is easy to use and is a reasonable price.

Oops just looked at external drive and called Clickfree not 1Click. Doh!