Backups are a pain in the neck and must be done best thing to do though is to spread your data around and have multiple copies of it (Floppie disk can push 10 years before major failures cds 25-50 years).

when did you last check your backups

Please do as a matter of course I've heard tooooooo many horror stories and recovered the odd photo for people.

I've got the task of converting camcorder tapes to DVD which contain the last recordings of my dad fingers crossed the tapes are okay but 10 years is the panic age for tapes (Life time garantee for tapes where the tapes life time)

having more than one type of backup is a good idea too as its going to be a pain to find a floppy drive in 10 years time if the one you have fails to work.

Another thing to be careful of how data is saved as the format may no longer be supported. I could go on forever but I'll finish with what I believe is a true story about backups (early 80's)

Lawer asks his sectary to make copies of his disk which she did without fail. After a Fire burnt down the office the lawer opened his firesafe to retrive the copied data to his surprize all he could find was a photo copies of every disk.
now I forget where i read this think it was PCW weekly.

I've got more IT sories like these some I've read some I've been involved in and some I've heard second hand