Recently I had to do a full reinstall on my partioned computer. I am running windows 98se and XPpro. I always do a complete system backup each month with a program called HP Simple Backup, but have never had to use it until this point. Will this product work to put all my items back on 98se and XPpro? Will I have to do each windows version seperate from each other (to load each backup) since I have two versions of windows; or could I load both window versions complete system backups from either 98se or XPpro? I have never done this before so it is new to me! Plus I have alot of programs to put on both versions. Overall it took 10 cd's to do a complete system backup on HP Simple Backup program. Thanks in advance for any help.

I submitted my question also to the HP support team and am unsure what they are telling me to do? Below is what they emailed me: Please ensure that your drive configuration is the same as the configuration in use when the backup was created. If the configuration is different, HP Simple Backup may not be able to correctly restore all of your data. When you try to restore the CDs created using the Simple Backup software, you may backup the CDs after installing the Windows version in which the Backup was created. All the data files of the other operating system will be successfully restored however, the software will not be automatically installed on the other Operating System. If anyone can break this down for me to understand I would appreciate it.

They are telling you that once you perform the backup, the files belonging to the OS and any files specific to installed programs will be backed up with it. If you install applications or make any changes to the OSes or system settings after the backup has been performed then restoring that system using the backup will lose those changes and installed applications. You must also be aware that your personal data that has been changed or added since your last backup will also not be restored. This is why they recommend that you perform incremental backups at least once a week. borelli34

borelli34, Thank You for clearing this up for me. I was running my pc for a year before it crashed. Within that year I made changes to the OS, but none were made since my last system backup. So... I take it that the changes that I did make to the OS will be made when I do the restore of the backup, correct? Just wondering... have you ever used the HP Simple Backup program?