Ever had this happen to you? You write that last line of your fifteen-page paper, you click save, and an error message comes up: “Word cannot save. Error in path” or “Word cannot open document,” and the next moment, your computer crashes on you? Here are some pointers on how to prevent lost data, especially during the crucial exam period.

Online Storage

Online storage makes life easier after a computer crash, and the best thing is that you don’t have to figure out where your disks are or worry about free space. Online storage helps save you when you forget your disk at home. All you have to do is download the file from school onto a spare disk.Yahoo Briefcase gives you 30 MB for each email account you sign up for. A megabyte can store around 35 pages of documents and 30 MB about 1100 pages, which means that you can store about 11 PhD thesis papers.

You can also save your work by sending your files as a Word document attachment to your email account. This way is an easy method to use and helps you because your work is automatically date stamped to prove you did it on time.

FTP

FTP lets you back up your document on a completely separate disk. Computer science students are given file transfer protocol (FTP) accounts, which let you send and copy files to your account. If you can get one yourself, they’re useful because you can submit work and keep back up copies. Most computers have FTP software, so you can get to your stuff from most anywhere.

Remote Access

Remote access technology allows you to access your computer files outside your home. This is a lifesaver when you forget your disk at home and the assignment is due in the next five minutes. Remote access is great if you live out of town. One catch: your home computer has to be online all the time so that you can connect to your computer from the school’s Internet-enabled computers to send or receive your files.

RAID

If you have the money, you can invest in two hard drives $150 to $250 each. This allows you to set up a Redundant Array of Independent Disk (RAID) back-up system. A RAID system has two hard drives—one automatically makes a copy of the other, so if your main hard drive dies, you can grab all of your stuff from the other.