BleepingComputer.com: Moving my computer

Hi,

I have a PC and I will be moving soon. I am concerned that when I shutdown my computer and pack it, I may lose everything. I will clean it up first and get it in good running order, but am wondering what is my best option for backing it up? I was thinking about using an online back up service, such as carbonite.
The computer works very well but I have been using it since late 2003. Its a Dell with Pentium 4 2.66 Ghz and 512 MB Ram, and it runs XP Professional, 2002 edition with service pack 3. [I know I could use more RAM]. I want to save mostly everything. The hard drive is 80 GB but 50 GB are free right now. I do have all the program disks that came with it, so I could re-install windows if I needed to.
Thanks for all your advice.

For backing up all of your personal information, you could burn it to disk (CD, or DVD's), transfer it to USB Flash drives, or purchase an external drive, and transfer everything to that.

Yes, I knew all that but this is a long distance move and all those devices would also have to be moved with my stuff.
It would take a very long time to burn CDs and they aren't all that reliable. I have back-up CDs now that don't work well. Flash, perhaps more reliable but easier to lose during moving and storage. An external hard drive is the other thing I am thinking about but thought it might be safer if the movers are not involved. This will be a long trip with some amount of time in storage and a week or so on the road. While storage is climate-controlled, the vehicles are not. This would be during the warmer months.
The online storage is a whole computer back-up - OS, programs, etc. included. If I did have to replace the PC, I could download to a new one. The cost is around $50. for a year.
I was hoping someone had some experience with this type of back-up and could give me an unbiased view on this type of storage. I thought it might be safest if it were reliable.

Depending on how your system is setup (partitions etc) and sizes of that i would recommend to do the following.

1.Burn 1 cd/DVD with your user profile (Documents and Settings/username) that includes most of your applications/games/bookmarks/links settings so its a good thing to have a backup on this.
2.On the same cd/DVD that you have your profile saved add all important documents and mailboxes and stuff that are important for you.
3.If C:\ where your OS is located is around the size 50GB or less you can Ghost just C:\ to a image and save it on a USB disk (a Western Digital disk on 250GB would be enough)


Applications and games can always be installed later if you have the media it came on or if its easy to get on the internet (freeware/opensource).

OR

Remove your hard drive from the computer and wrap it up in a lot of bubble plaster then put it in a good solid box.. hard drives aren't that easy to break if you pack em well.
Then put it in a bag that you carry with you.