A recovery USB drive is a separate, portable flash drive that your computer can use instead of your main hard drive to start up from. Whatever issues you're having on your system can be bypassed ...

Assuming your main operating system is Windows, try pulling up Computer Management via the Start menu when you have your USB drive plugged in. Does it even appear at all?

Optical drives let your computer read and interact with discs like CDs, DVDs, and Blu-rays. However, they're quickly becoming outdated.

What is a hard drive? We cover the hard drive's purpose, why it's very important, its origins, and more info you should know before upgrading or buying a PC.

That's it! OS X will perform its first backup (during which you'll want to keep your computer on), and from then on it'll back up in the background with no work required on your part.