When I purchased my computer it came with the hard disc partioned into 30 Gig and 50 Gig sectors. The 30 Gig part contains all the daily operating stuff and the 50 Gig part has only Norton Ghost installed on it. I've been trying to find out about this program and what it does by reading the manuals etc. but I get lost in the terminology.

What I sort of get so far is the stuff about disaster recovery and having a backup image file, even though I'm not quite sure what an image file is.

What I'd like to know is are my files, photos, documents and music being automatically backed up by the program or does backing up require some input from me and if it does, how do I go about it ?

The manuals and tutorials have info on backing up hard discs and partitions but I can't seem to find anything about backing up individual files. Would I have to copy the entire partition to overwrite the current one each time ? Does having my HD partitions designated as two different drives make the one with the backup as safe as having a separate drive.

I'd appreciate any information anyone is willing to offer.