I wrote a 10 step guide to making yourself a quick and easy system backup disk set .. these are so handy to have!
if you havent already done so, get your self a cd writer, or find a generous person who will let you borrow theirs for a couple of hours... OR ... make a separate partition on your drive to shift your work over to (alot quicker!..u can use partition magic)
personally this is what i would do for a fool proof way of upgrading:
1. backup all your stuff on cd's OR move to other partition
2. format the drive
3. set up xp
4. install EVERY program u know u will definitely use AND install NORTON GHOST (vital part of this 10step guide)
5. install all drivers etc that may be needed.
6. set the machine up to run exactly as u would alwasy like it to look and run.
9. Run every program atleast once to make sure they work fine.
10. Run a system check and defrag and clean all temp files etc.
8. create a TEXT file called welcome.txt and put it in the startup folder and list exactly what has been installed on your computer and how things are setup.. be brief or go into as much detail as you want.
9. Reboot the machine ( A MUST!! )
10. open NORTON ghost and make some disk images of how your drive is.
What this simple 10 step process allows you to do is have an exact copy of your drive which can be setup at a moments notice so that you dont have to spend hours re-installing everything.. i have made a set of these disks (3 disks in total) and whenever i mess anything up i just reinstall the images! all my work is saved on a separate partition.. (will get a separate Hdisk later for this)
hope that helps! Xp is a great OS.. enjoy
**if i missed something im sure somebody else will be happy t fill u in**