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Backup. Windows has a backup program onboard, as far as I have used them, they have to be started manually. Put your backups on a physically seperate medium. If the HD completly fails, you won't be dependent on a partion issue. There are alot of Backup programms on the web, some of wich are very good, and most of them cost around $50, which is nothing compared to the stress of no backup when everything is gone...
here is a good one, the registration is $30
You can use this for 30 days as trial. The main thing is that you back up your files as fast as possible.
I have seen offices lose 90% of all data do to viruses, major data do to system errors or hardware vacations. Just last week the last one : even though I informed all personal in the network that only the data on the server is secured 3 times over, one secretary who thinks she knows everything better, copies the important things on to her computer and maps everyone to her computer. She just wants to be important...
Can you figure out which HD went by by last week?