If you're backing up your PC at all, you're heading in the right direction. The most important thing is to back up your PC - at least once in while - to someplace other than your PC.

WindowsXP comes with a version of the tried and true NTBackup program that will do a good job of backing up your important files to a CD-ROM or a DVD-ROM - if your computer is equipped with a CD or DVD burner. If your PC doesn't have a burner you probably have a floppy drive so you can back up your files to a floppy disk. Another very good choice for backups is an external hard drive.

Floppy disks have a capacity of 1.44 MB. CD-ROMS have a capacity of about 700MB or about 480 floppy disks. DVD-ROMs have a capacity of 4.7GB or 6 CD-ROMs or 3,260 floppies. As you can see, you have to pretty selective about which files to back up if you're backing up to floppies.

Which files to back up is up to you. Documents, spreadsheets, and databases are obvious choices. If you'll be backing up your digital pictures and movies (and you should) you should probably look at using a DVD burner. I normally don't recommend backing up music you've ripped from CDs since those files can take up a huge amount of space. You can easily rip the CDs again if necessary. Any music you've downloaded should be copied to a portable MP3 player for safekeeping, if your DRM (Digital Rights Management) allows that sort of thing.

Humans will forget to back up their computers, so I recommend using the Windows Task Scheduler to make sure the backups get done.

If you want more of a how-to post on any of the topics I covered here, let me know in the Comments section.