It is frustrating when you lose important documents that you have spent so much time creating. This is especially true if you are like most users who create documents directly on the computer and do not have a handwritten copy.

Here are six ways to keep your word processing documents safe.

Although most word processors store your files in the My Documents folder, this is the worst place for them. Whether it is a virus or a software bug, most computer problems affect the operating system and often the only solution is to reformat the drive and reinstall the operating system. In such a case, everything on the drive is lost.

Installing a second hard drive in your computer is a relatively inexpensive way to solve this problem. A second internal hard drive is not affected if the operating system is damaged, and can even be installed in another computer if you need to buy a new one.