Hi I have had my computer a Pentium II 266 MMX for about 3 years I started of with Win 95 and have since put on Win 98 then Win 98SE I have done this without doing clean installs. I also download a lot and then uninstall what I doin't like so my system is starting to get sluggish although I do frequent thorough scan disks and de frags at least once a month. I have internet explorer 501 use outlook express for my email and use ICQ I would like to do a clean install what I would like to know is what files on my system should I back up and how do I reinstall these files so I can get my address book back and such. Love this forum it is so helpfull Kaz

You didn't state what kind of backup capabilities you might have. For a couple of hundred bucks, you can get a Tape Drive(Travan)... I have one in each of my computers and I use Windows Backup as the software. I even back up my laptop with them; using an ethernet 10/100 network. It seems like a lot of money to pay for something so "unexciting", but backing up my HD's on a regular basis has saved my proverbial butt more than once. Hope that helps...good luck.

Just do file find for *.dbx, copy all the files found to your backup media. This is all your messages, and Outlook express information. Find *.wab, and copy to backup. This is your address book. Al

G'day Kaz, I take it that you want to format your drive then the location for the files that A1 is referring to is c:\windows\Application Data\Microsoft\ and this should fit on a floppy, also you should save as much from the ICQ folder as well like the .vcf files and anything with your Icq number on it, go through it all. You might also want to take a note of your Internet settings as well. How big is your HD, you might want to consider splitting it into several partitions and this can also act as a safe place to store your data without the need to format the additional drives as normally C: gets the works [format] done to it when things go wrong and you to have start all over again. And please make sure your boot disc has CD-rom support and you can access it from the boot disc, this is important, or at least have the Cd-rom install disc handy if you have never done this before.

Thanks everyone for the help, to answer Joe no I do not have any back up capabilities sounds like a good idea though. Ronnie I have 2 Hard drives c which is 3.2GB and D which is 8.2 GB. No I have never done a format or clean install before at the moment I am just rathering as much info as possible. Kaz

G'day Kaz, well as you have 2 HD's that's even better than to partition the first one as you can save what you have to on the second one and then wipe the first and do a clean install, no need to touch HD2. You can also use the Backup.exe [which is pretty much the same program for Tape backups] and you can save the .QIC file it creates to HD2 and then restore whatever you want later. There is a HOW TO button above which should help you out [Advanced section]