I have recently had 2 crashes within a week (culprit now identified!). I can re-build since I backup my data regularly, but it does take ages to re-load Win XP and Office 2003 and its updates plus all my additional software. I have an external drive, but not big enough to hold all data, just my files. I intend to buy a larger external HDD, but I am puzzled by one thing namely the restore procedure. I can backup using Win XP's own Backup facility and I also use Iomega Automatic Backup Pro. My query is if I have a crash what do I do in the first instance. Do I need to re-load Win XP first then restore, can I simply get to MSDOS and do a copy external HDD to my PC or am I missing something here? It is just this first step that really puzzles me.

Can you advise?

Thanks