If you have a backup, but have added new files on the computer since the backup was made, you can update the backup using the XCOPY command with the "bare" /D switch.

XCOPY /D will copy everything, but will not overwrite a file in the backup that's as new as the one on the computer, so it flips through the ones it doesn't need to copy fairly quickly - writing only the new ones.

You would then have everything that needs copied to your new computer in one backup, and Win Explorer or a straight COPY command in Command Prompt would get it all to the new one. There are some advantages to using XCOPY for simple file transfers, rather than just COPY; but either will mostly work about the same.

(In WinXP, and maybe in Win98, XCOPY can be "switched" to "continue on error," where COPY or WinExplorer drag-and-drop just stops. Since files aren't necessarily copied in the order you see them, any ABEND (abnormal end of process) on the copy process leaves you not knowing which ones got copied and which ones still have to be copied.)

If your backup is split up on several CDs, you would need to copy it all back to a hard drive, copy the new ones into the backup, and then burn new CDs that you can copy to the new hard drive.

If you use the /D:m-d-y switch, you can just copy the changed (since date m-d-y) files to a side folder and burn them. Copy everything from the original CDs, then copy from the new one and let it overwrite any "obsolete" files and write the new ones.

IF PERCHANCE you can get both the old and new computers running side-by-side, there are numerous ways you could connect the two together, and copy directly from the Win98 hard drive to the new computer hard drive; but if you don't intend to continue running both it's probably more bother than it's worth.

If you can perchance come up with an external USB hard drive to use as a backup drive, it's a whole lot easier than burning a bunch of CDs (and forgetting what's on which one). Plug the USB drive into the Win98 and copy (as Nick said, with XCOPY /D to update an existing copy/backup) and then plug the same drive into the new one to copy them onto the new machine. (Since hard drives do fail, and not every CD that tells you it's good can actually be read, it's a good idea to keep every "valuable file" up to date in at least two places on a regular basis.)

If you're moving from Win98 to WinXP or Vista, you will have a lot more and larger files to back up eventually - or maybe fairly soon, so thinking ahead to better ways of keeping current and complete backups of data begins to be a very good idea.

John