blue screen of death and backing up

[reet]

need help here. I am working on a friends computer. It is running windows 98se. It has 256m of ram and no cd-rw. I am trying to install an external usb hardrive to backup everything so I can wipe it out and reinstall everything. However, I keep getting the dreaded blue screens of death and I cannot even get far enough into windows to install the backup software. I have reinstalled windows 98se 3 times. Is there anyway to back up their files in dos to save them to reinstall later? any suggestions to stop the blue screens of death?

[HyperTF]

Well not that many people have them lying around, but if you have a spare hard drive you could install it as a slave under his master and copy the files over. Then copy them back later. Zipping them up might help too.
You can do file transfers in DOS but it is quite limited and antiquated and you are still posed with the same issues.
How much data are we talking about here anyway (requiring backup)?
I don't know about where you are but I can pick up a decent CD-RW device for $50 here in Australia your friend might be happy with purchasing this anyway! they are very cheap given DVD burners are on the market.
Sounds like there is some conflict somewhere on that system, it might pay to reformat and re-install windows... maybe time for an upgrade too! (What are their system specs? 512MB RAM might shine a little better!)
Good luck!

EDIT: Actually I re-read your question, maybe do that process in reverse. It would be wiser to take your friends hard drive out and hook it up as a slave in your computer then transfer the files to your hard drive. put the drive back in the old PC, reformat, install windows and then either burn the files onto a CD from your machine or hook their Hard drive back up as a slave again and copy the files back.
I hope I haven't confused you

EDIT2: This is just advice remember. If you are not sure how to configure the master/slave set up then ask here or phone a friend! Not that i think you will stuff up your PC, it is just if you aren't confident ask for help. Oh and someone else might have a better suggestion anyway!

[GaryRouth]

For the slaving the drive in another PC idea, here's a similiar link with some extra details: http://forum.pcmech.com/showthread.php?t=106182
. . . Gary