[jyl]

What the backup will allow you to do depends on how comprehensive the backup is.

I use a backup program, Retrospect, that lets you creat a full backup. When I wanted to replace my iBook's hard drive, I simply installed the new drive, formatted it, did a full restore from Retrospect, and iBook was exactly the way it had been - OS, apps, data, preferences, everything, couldn't tell anything had changed expect that I now had 60GB extra storage. Retrospect is available for PC or Mac. I'm sure there are plenty of other backup apps that do the same thing.

The two methods I suggested above will only save your data. If your Thinkpad hard drive crashes, you'll have to reinstall the OS and apps and re-create all your app preferences.

Not sure what the Maxtor One-Touch does. Worth looking into, is probably the cheapest way to get external hard drive plus backup app all in one bundle.

Your Thinkpad should have option for creating recovery CDs, not sure what that actually does. I have a Thinkpad but have never tried.