ok guys i need some advise. i have my main game saved under MyGames>Bethesda>Oblivion. last time i messed my game up and i had to reinstall everything from the CD's and it took ages.

so.. if i copy and paste the info from MyGames which folder should i put it in?

i was thinking about putting it as a backup on my usb but seeing as the only usb i have stores merely 1gb of data, that aint gonna be enough as Oblivion is bigger than that.

so where should i put it? i am worried there'll be conflict if i put it elsewhere on my C drive (or D drive) as these are constantly turned on. at least with a usb its plug in and out so when its out theres no conflict right?

or have i got this all wrong? as u can tell i am a newb to this stuff so please dont laugh at my questions i need ur help.

Copy and pasting will only work if you mess around with your registry. Reinstall the game, if the "My Games" folder is the one under Documents. The whole point of reinstalling is to move the game into a custom folder, and you just put it in another default Windows folder (if I have assumed correctly.)

As for backups, put them anywhere you want: external HDD, another HDD, another folder anywhere you have space. If it were me, I would make a folder Oblivion Mods directly on the hard drive, as separate HDD if I had one. If I did not have an HDD to give to Oblivion by itself, I would create a folder Oblivion on local disk (the main HDD) and create a set of folders (i.e., Oblivion Mods, Utilities, Installers, etc.) in which I would organize backups. Then again, I am pretty anol about organization... You do not have to go that far. As long as the backups are in a different main folder or partition, they are safer than if they were put in the Oblivion install folder. You can use your Documents folder for the backups.

thanx for the advice so u think that it's safe right? that the game wont try to load from 2 seperate sources (where i installed vs where i put my backup) and won't conflict??

It can't. The registry keys associate it with one install path.

ur a genious and thanx again