Checklist for Reformatting

[Nancy Allison]

I've just done a web search for "checklist for reformatting hard drive" and I have not found anything like what I'm looking for.

I work from home and don't have an IT department to rely on. Even after I run SpyBot, Counterspy, Norton, and AdAware, and even after I did a partial reinstallation of XP, my computer is still as slow as cold molasses.

It's time to reformat my hard drive, but despite saving almost everything to an external HP Personal media drive, I'm scared to death that I will lose key data. Here's the backup checklist that I've come up with so far:

1.  Export Contacts, Calendar, and Mail from Outlook, and back up the exported files.

2.  Export Favorites from IE and back up.

3.  Back up all known data files.

4.  Back up all downloaded executables that I will need to reinstall software.

>From your collective wisdom (and painful experiences) -- What hidden or obscure files am I not thinking of?

Honestly, I could not find an existing checklist for personal computers. If there is one, please point me to it. If there isn't, I'll create one from what I learn here and send it to anyone who'd like to have it.

Thank you for your help. I am sick to death of having to take a nap while waiting for a new application to open . . . 

--Nancy