- The serial of the windows OS you're installing
- serial numbers of the software you own and the software media's of course
- boot disk -to start up your computer
- drivers for all your hardware (preferably on diskettes) such as modem, printer, monitor, graphics card...
- CD-ROM driver disc
- dial up software of your ISP, and settings which include number to dial-up, DNS server ip addresses, login scripts...
- your e-mail settings (pop serve addresses, passwords, login name, news server addresses..)
cuecards
- my documents folder or wherever you store your documents
- cdPlayer.ini. This file (located in c:\windows folder) stores the information of music CD's (Title, album name, song name...) that you retrieved from cddb or entered by hand
- favorites which is located by default in c:\windows\favorites. Just zip the favorites folder which will make take much less space. If ya want to convert your Internet explorer favorites into an html page, check out IE converter
- bookmarks. Usually located c:\program files\Netscape\communicator\users\username\bookmark.htm
- e-mail received and sent. If you have outlook, all data is stored in outlook.pst normally in your windows folder, if not, use Find to locate it. The archived once are stored in c:\windows\application data\microsoft\outlook\archive.pst
- html files of your homepage
homep000.ini
- PGP keys, private and public
- personal stock monitor. The files have an stk extension and are by default located in the Program folder
- supercat If you have this program (a great indexer) the indexed media info are stored in files with idx extension. Depending how big and how many files were on the media at the time of indexing, the file(s) can range from a few kbs to several mb
- graphics. You might have collected great jpg and gifs over time or have some of your own that you scanned or made yourself, so don't loos'em
- mp3> Your favorite music tunes
- Psion or PalmPilot files that you haven't backed up yet
- avantgo.ini. If you have this great software for either WindowsCE or the PalmPilot, ya'll want to back up the settings and the links you've subscribed to. C:\Program Files\AvantGo\doc\quickstart\subs_pages\subs_files\ and have the extension, you guessed it, sub
- self made queries that you use to get webdata into excel. These have iqy extensions and are located in C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Queries click here for more queries
- real audio files
- icq folder
- chat logs
- updates. Only the crucial ones
- favorite fonts that you looked for centuries until you found the right one for the thing you were working on. Located in the windows folder
- wallpapers that you like (located in the windows folder)
- quicken. The files which contain all your backup finance information
- stuff you may have lying around there such as your quick notes txt files or to-dos
- address books of whatever personal information manager ya use

I thinks the secret is automation. If you manage to automate the backup process, it may take alotta work first but if ya do it right, the next time you do a full backup, it'll be much easier and faster. For instance you can use "Second Copy" or any other similar software utility to automatically copy periodically certain files (such as those listed above) from different directories into one folder so that next time you simply zip that folder and voila.

It's a good idea for making a hard copy (yes, that's paper for allya digital freaks) of the serial, isp number, server addresses that you have before you wipe out your hard drive, basically all stuff ya need for reinstalling everything and that that you need a computer to view.