Many ways to back up data.

I can't back up data on a CD. The first one I tried worked fine. All others stop partway through the "Writing Wizard" with a message that there was an error in the writing process. I am considering getting an external floppy disc drive as the easiest solution. Any suggestions?

-- N.M., Chapel Hill

A: There are a lot of reasons why you might get this error message, and some might require some complex troubleshooting, said Priscilla Alden of UNC-Chapel Hill's Information Technology Services. Still, she has some suggestions.

First, try shutting down any antivirus software or other programs that you have running in the background. They could be interfering with the CD backup.

People with older machines sometimes have this kind of trouble after they upgrade to XP Service Pack 2, Alden said. If you have XP and have installed the service pack recently, try uninstalling it.

You can also try different CD-burning software, said Jeff Dixon, a systems engineer at SyTec, a Raleigh information technology consulting and services company.

He has seen concerns like this before with the free software included with XP and suggests the Nero program instead. You can download Nero 7 Ultra Edition Enhanced at www.nero.com for $80.

Or you could pay $5 for Nero 7 Essentials at www.surpluscomputers.com. The site sells a genuine copy of the software that was intended to be sold with hardware such as a computer or DVD burner. Buying the $5 version is legal and much cheaper, but that version is bare-bones and won't necessarily come with the same documentation or software extras as the retail version. In this case, you get just a 30-day trial of several multimedia software programs that go beyond the core CD-burning capabilities. You also might not be eligible for deals on updates.

If you have a USB port on your computer, you have lots of other options to back up data without using your computer's CD burner. As you mentioned, you could buy an external CD or DVD burner. They are likely to cost $60 to $170 online.

You also could buy an external hard drive, which starts below $100 and can run to $250 or higher.

But if you're looking for the portability of a CD and you're not backing up large amounts of data, you might consider going with a thumb drive. Thumb drives, also called flash drives, are devices smaller than a tube of lipstick that you can plug into your computer to save files, then take with you anywhere. You can get a 2GB flash drive for as little as $15.

Finally, you could consider backing up your data to a secure Web site. That's also portable, as you could get access to your files anywhere you find a computer with Internet access. For reviews of popular options, go to www.consumersearch.com/www/ internet/online-backup-services/review.html.

Q: Internet Explorer has a really useful function called AutoComplete, which greatly lessens the pain of filling in numerous Web forms or remembering multiple passwords and logins for different Web sites. But if you check the box that says "Don't offer to remember any more passwords," Explorer will never offer to save a password for that site again. Is there any way to get Explorer to start prompting you to save passwords again?

-- C.R., Apex

A:Start by going to the menu at the top of your screen for tools, then select Internet options, the content tab and the button for AutoComplete. Checking the box for "Prompt me to save passwords" will bring the prompt back, Alden and Dixon said.

But even after clicking the box, the option to save messages won't show up on all, or even most, sites. Explorer offered to save my eBay login data, but not my library, Amazon or Yahoo logins.