Windows 7 Made Simple

Chapter 16

Protecting Your Computer and Data

It's easy to take for granted that your computer will always work well, and that everything you store on it will be kept safe for your own use and no others. But you will be in a world of sadness, anger, and frustration if you can no longer access your pictures, music, documents, videos, games, or email messages. There are many things that can happen in a blink of an eye that either take away what you saved on your computer or make your computer entirely unusable:

• Your hard drive crashes. It's not a question of “if,” it's a question of when. Eventually, every hard drive fails. We just hope it doesn't happen while we still own that computer.
• It can take less than a minute for hackers or other computers ...