Thanks for that, Dodger. Yes, that was the bit that worried me - the fact that some things on the System Image on the external drive (if, in fact, it is there) are already installed on the new laptop, e.g. the OS and other pre-installed software, and I couldn't work out how a re-install would cope with the duplication. I'm just spitting chips at some of the neat programs I had installed that I no longer have the software for. Oh well, c'est la vie! The most important things are the docs and I should be pretty safe copying them over. Thanks a lot for your advice. Cheers, Irene.