Thanks for the earlier replies (yesterday). Sorry to be such a pain, but I'm still not clear about how to proceed with this. I've got an external hard drive with USB connection, it's 1TB, so that would seem to be large enough. I've searched my PC for backup info but can't find anything using Help and Search. I'm using XP. Can you please suggest some free downloads to help with this? I have some documents and other items saved on flash drive, but I don't have an installation disc to use if I need to wipe the hard drive. What will be saved when I back the system up? Everything? Or just selected, vital components? Sorry about this. I'm such a dinosaur.