Internetworkers: http://www.ibiblio.org/internetworkers/

[Childers.Paula AT epamail.epa.gov]

Hey gang;

I recently bought a "new-to-me" laptop computer with some great software
loaded on it I don't want to lose, but also some stuff I want gone,
like, right away (*cough*KaZaA*cough*). I need some advice from those
who might have dealt with a similar situation as to how best to handle
this.

Background: It's running Windows 98, vendor-tweaked edition. It's a
Sony. It doesn't have a CD-ROM drive, just a floppy. It does have a port
replicator with parallel port, USB connect, and some other stuff, too.
It has a built-in modem.

I want to remove some software, but I don't want to wipe it, and I'm
a-feared of doing much tinkering without a backup. Heck, without a
CD-ROM drive, I couldn't reinstall if I wanted to, even if I had all the
disks, which I don't.  I intend to buy a CDR for it ASAP, but in the
meantime........I'm wondering if any of you know of any utilities to,
say, make a compressed total backup of the entire drive, that I could
then use a parallel direct-cable-connect to transfer to my home PC?   Do
such things exist? Is this the best way, given the rest? What other
options do I have?

I feel like such a loser. I can make your UNIX-based webserver sing
(well, almost) but Windows PC's still make me gabber nonsense. Such is
life.

Paula the (semi-) lurker