On the other side of the fence for a change.

I need to back up a PC running XP to an external USB drive, can you recommend some good free software for the job, preferably something I can pre-install on the drive and run from there (assuming that’s possible)?

Also, is there any easy way to extract contact details from Outlook 2010 in some kind of universal format (ideally csv but xls would do)?

What sort of backup? image or just files? Clonezilla boots from CD and can do image backups. or XP pro has a backup program built in.

In outlook 2010 you can go to the file menu & select export then select contacts & select csv as the output file type.

Yeah, should have clarified, I just need a single clone of the user’s data (Documents etc.). I think it is XP Pro.

re. Outlook, perfect, thanks.

To clone the whole drive use clonezilla (free download)
To make a backup as a backup file use windows backup (accessories - system tools)
To copy them from one drive to another as files, use teracopy

Brilliant, thanks.