I have already done that, just a day before April Fool's day. Luckily, I
have two hard drives on the system. So I transferred all the documents -
word, spreadsheets, audio, video, e-mail, address book, installable programs
in zip format and drivers downloaded from various sites etc to the D drive.
I had to buy a new XP installation disk. The old one cannot be used. Most of
the drivers were installed automatically by XP because the latest disk
includes not only SP2 but the updated drivers, Very few drivers had to be
updated using my Internet Download Folder or by fresh downloading.
Everything is working fine and some of the devices like my external
synthesizer - which was connected to the SoundBlaster card which was not
acceptable to Vista because there was no compatible driver available and had
to be changed - can now be used.
Best luck for a successful retreat.
P. Jayant