ok something happened to my computer this week and it's slowing it down majorly.  I've decided to do a clean install since it's been about a year since i last did one.  the only thing is that i want to save all of my music FILES and my pictures.  I am planning to use my ipods external hard drive function.  the reason for this is that ive discovered my partitions are pretty much a mess and i just want to START fresh.  is using the ipod for this a good idea?What's the capacity of your ipod?

Do you have a CD writer.Reformat one PARTITION now, store the files there, reformat other partitions, PLACE files back.it's a 40 gig with about 20 gigs free space.  i have already done the copy and paste to the ipod and opened it up as an external hd everything looks to be in order so farok i just reinstalled xp i put all of my important stuff (pictures, music, movies, etc.) on a seperate partition, only now that partition is not showing up.  I ran the seagate CD and it SAYS that HD is not set up for use with this computer and that i have to format it   any way to get the files out without doing that?Was that partition created earlier to installation of XP.The partition that the files are on is on my slave drive and it's saying my slave drive is non existant.  but when i put in the seagate cd it finds it saying that i need to format it, is there a way to get to the files without formatting?i heard that a data recovery program may work, does anyone know of any freeware data recovery programs?http://www.pcinspector.de/file_recovery/UK/welcome.htm


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