I'm planning a reformat of my C: partition and reinstall of Windows XP. I'm in the process of backing up my critical data on my D: partition. Question: what parts of "C:\Documents and Settings" do I need to back up? Each member of my family has a user account (i.e. 3 accounts), but there appear to be a number of folders which are common across users. The Docs and Settings folder is almost 3Gb in size. So do I really need to back up all of this folder? If not, what parts would you consider critical? Thanks, Lee

What each User sees, when logged onto their own account, comes from two places: C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Shared Documents and C:\Documents and Settings\username\My Documents Where username denotes your User Account configured on the computer. ------------ Check back for comments from others.

Lee: For menthods of installation check here: LINK Check left-hand column of webpage near top. No matter which method of installation you choose, the most critical files are your personal files (e.g., ones that are not on the installation CD). Back them up. Solarian