reformatting XP

[witness]

I guess I am "old school" so please bear with me. When I had win 95 and things just wasn't going right I would just reformat and do a new install or reinstall over the current and not loose much. With a backup drive it was easy to save stuff to it & reformat the main drive and put stuff back the way it should be, heck there were even (bunches of) people that said that you should reformat and reinstall ever so often (some even said every month or two). With win xp (home) it has become more difficult to fix things back...put you're "favorites" back, you're email folders (deleted emails, I sometimes need to go back to old emails) Does anyone know of some sort of a guide to reformatting/reinstalling xp or how to use the "repair mode" in xp? I know there is the option of "system restore" but let's not consider that in this thread.
Thanks,
DR

[andyms18a]

in xp you have the files and settings transfer wizard its in start programs acceseries system tools if you run it and select this is the old computer option
then folow the instructions to back up which ever setings and files you want save the backup to a cd or another partition on your hard drive when its finished place the xp cd in the drive and reboot the computer enter the bios and set first boot device to the cd drive save changes and reboot press any key to boot from cd then select install then install again select the hard drive with xp on it and chose format then folow the onscrean instruction

its a good idea to download any drivers and xp service pack 2 be for you format you can evan slipstream sp2 on to you winxp cd check out this thread
http://forum.pcmech.com/showthread.php?t=106894 when windows has finished loading run the files and setings transfer wizard again and select this is new computer brows to the file you saved and folow the instruction