I’ve been having stability problems with my desktop computer. It operates using Windows XP Professional. I’ve used various utilities to find the problem, but they sometimes create new problems. I’ve decided to reinstall my operating system and software. In preparation, I tried to make a backup of my hard drive. I was able to use the Microsoft utility “Backup” to create the image on an external hard drive. It took almost 9 hours to transfer the information. At the end I received a message to load a diskette into drive A: to create an informational diskette of the backup to be used, I believe, for emergency recovery. Unfortunately, my A: floppy drive has not worked for years. I have an external B: floppy drive that I plug into my USB port that I use when dealing with diskettes. The Microsoft utility doesn’t give me the option to specify the B: drive, or any other drive for this effort. What are my options? Do I need the diskette? I can see the new “backup” on my external hard drive. Can I just click on it to do a “restore”? Also, can you tell me if I’m going about upgrading my operating system correctly? I plan to reinstall Windows XP Professional, then my old software. After that, I plan to do the upgrade to Microsoft Windows 7. I’m hoping I’ll have fewer problems with older software going this route. Does that make sense? Are there other options I should consider?1 person needs an answerI do too

If you plan to go to Windows 7, there is little point in doing anything with your XP because there is no simple 'in place' upgrade path from XP to 7, so you would have to do a clean install anywayand reinstall all your software. Nice video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Om1V_fkHFiM<Gerry1822> wrote in message news:Email removed for privacy...I've been having stability problems with my desktop computer. It operates using Windows XP Professional. I've used various utilities to find the problem, but they sometimes create new problems. I've decided to reinstall my operating system and software. In preparation, I tried to make a backup of my hard drive. I was able to use the Microsoft utility "Backup" to create the image on an external hard drive. It took almost 9 hours to transfer the information. At the end I received a message to load a diskette into drive A: to create an informational diskette of the backup to be used, I believe, for emergency recovery. Unfortunately, my A: floppy drive has not worked for years. I have an external B: floppy drive that I plug into my USB port that I use when dealing with diskettes. The Microsoft utility doesn't give me the option to specify the B: drive, or any other drive for this effort. What are my options? Do I need the diskette? I can see the new "backup" on my external hard drive. Can I just click on it to do a "restore"? Also, can you tell me if I'm going about upgrading my operating system correctly? I plan to reinstall Windows XP Professional, then my old software. After that, I plan to do the upgrade to Microsoft Windows 7. I'm hoping I'll have fewer problems with older software going this route. Does that make sense? Are there other options I should consider?