Your photos, music and data are just a virus or hard disk failure away from oblivion. Build a triple-layer defence using PC Authority's practical guide.

Our feature story covers best formats, backup options, and why you should reburn those photo CDs every two years.

External hard disks are a great way to add storage. We test 13, from sub-$130 portable drives to mighty terabyte desktop units.

PC Authority takes a trip down computer memory lane and discovers just how PC technology has evolved... and how Microsoft and IBM nearly destroyed each other.

Does dropping a hard disk from a third floor window or dunking it in a cup of tea mean curtains for your data? We visit Ontrack's data recovery labs to find out.

With the increasing size of operating systems, games and the broadband smorgasbord of music and movies, it's just a matter of time before that dreaded message box pops up to tell you just how little space you have left.

Want to perform an extreme makeover of your system's motherboard, processor, memory or hard disk? We'll show you how.

Climb the steps all the way to Windows guru status with our invaluable selection of tips and shortcuts for XP and Vista.

Impressive and free antivirus and antispyware package

Many people upgrade their PCs by adding the latest CPU or more memory, but leave their old hard disk in place. The humble hard disk is one of the slowest components inside a PC (in fact, only optical

Solid state 1GB and 2GB drives target low cost computers.

Stuart Andrews shows you how to set up and maintain the perfect backup routine.

Ever wondered what a particular acronym stands for? Find the answer in our comprehensive reference guide to computer industry acronyms. RTFM!

High-capacity desktop drives have never been so affordable. Darien Graham-Smith puts 23 to the test to find the best

Impressive and free antivirus and antispyware package

Impressive and free antivirus and antispyware package

Hard drives used to be the coolest thing - in the olden days, when all home PCs were slow, a hard drive was often a measure of how 'good' your computer was. For quite sometime, however, processor and graphics technology stole the limelight. Hard drives have been taken for granted - an ambient component that accompanies your sparkling graphics card and gi-normous heat sink.

It doesn't happen often, but in case it does, we'll step you through Linux disaster recovery.

Just over four months on from our massive hard drive roundup (October 2002, page 74), and Serial ATA (SATA) hard disks have finally arrived. Phew.