[jyl]

Or go to local computer shop or eBay, buy cheapest hard drive that is bigger than Thinkpad hard drive, and an external USB enclosure, put drive in enclosure, connect to Thinkpad, open Windows Explorer, and simply manually copy data files from Thinkpad to external drive every week or so. TO make this easier, rejigger your app preferences to store all files in one coherent location, e.g. My Documents. Should cost about $100, 3.5" drives are cheap.

Or if you have a desktop PC w/ enough spare hard drive capacity, buy Laplink Gold which lets you network Thinkpad to desktop PC over a special USB cable, and lets you backup or synchronize selected folders. About $125.