

More serious is the loss of irreplaceable files such as the near-final draft of a novel you spent the last two years writing. Even here, though, if a problem destroyed a folder containing hundreds of such programs, it would be a real pain to remember everything you lost and then reacquire all of the software. In that case, you can just download it again.


The danger posed by a lost or corrupted file may not seem serious if the file in question is a freeware program you downloaded from the Web. When this happens, you'll be glad you had a backup. Here's some advice you should already know: Back up the files on your drive(s)-and do so often! If a file on your drive gets corrupted or accidentally deleted and you don't have a backup, you may not be able to retrieve it. Learn More Buy Backing Up and Restoring Mac OS X Volumes
