OK so the merchandise arrived about 15 minutes ago and I'm sitting here absolutley cacking it in case I do something wrong

Question for Thaedius: Did you have to re-install Windows XP after you installed the new Mobo?

Better make sure I save all my documents and settings before I proceed

Turks,

Most of the time you can get away with not re-installing XP if you replace the mobo with an equiv of the same manufacturer.

BUT im pretty sure you will get the nice blue screen when you boot up.

I reckon a reinstall is on the books.

each file is about 2gb - too big for notepad and wordpad is gonna take an age to open it.
I think I may need to get a windows update from their site as this may be a common problem but I'm unsure

Your old xp user name, usually something like C:\Documents and Settings\karl - RG3gfg3%D"DY\.........
This will have all of your old settings in one format or another. Although if the wizard deletes these when it makes the transfer files, then I don't know how to fix that. Otherwise right in the root directory is a folder with all of your favourite (goat pr0n ) links, and you can just copy these into the corresponding new directory.

Well my pc had some sort of major crash last night which meant a total reinstall again and in doing so the windows disk managed to wipe my entire backup drive too (that or the crash).

So now I don't even have my missus' settings either.

I've had to go right back to the beginning and start from scratch wiv nowt.