What's best way to backup before format & install windows xp?

[barnettgs]

My files in My Documents is about 16GB. I have firefox and messages in outlook express. I haven't format my computer for over one and half years and I think it's time to do reformat & fresh install.

I know there is File & Settings Transfer Wizards but with 16GB, is second HDD only way to do? I don't have any spare HDD at the moment.

What do you recommend me to do?

Thanks in advance

 

[barnettgs]

do you have a dvdrw?

www.7zip.org

try compressing your mydocs with 7zip in 7zultra compression

Yeah, I have it & Nero 6.6.

 

[barnettgs]

Thanks for some replies.

My second HDD of 20GB broke down a couple of years ago so I thought there might be other way to backup but it's obvious that I need to buy a cheap 2nd HDD for ease of backup rather than taking too long buring to some DVDs.

At the moment, I already have two partitions on one 120 GB drive - C drive has 20GB but sometimes it needs defragmenting more often than needed due to lack of free space.

Cheers