ok here's my advise, its a lot like horndoctor said, only if you use activesync that means your contacts are all in Outlook, and to backup your contacts from Outlook you can just export them to CSV file using File -> Export. This really a simple procedure that just saves your contacts as a single file in a location you specify, so remember where you save it and what you name it !!!
then if something should go terribly wrong, you can then restore those precious contacts using File - Import.
*edit* remember when exporting contacts you must SELECT ALL to backup all of them
