Is It Possible To Backup Win XP From Safe Mode?

I was having troubles with my computer roughly a month ago. I came here, and after a long tedious fight with my computer, the conclusion was that my hard drive was scrapped. I went out and bought a new one, and reinstalled Windows XP Home Edition. I input my activation key, everything was running smoothly. I updated to SP2, and suddenly it said I needed to activate again. I didn't understand it. When I went to "activate" it, I recieved a message saying that my copy of windows was already activated. I decided that since it said it was activated, not to worry about the message. Sure enough, when the timer hit 0, it locked me out. Says I need to activate my copy. I say okay, and it brings me to my desktop and displays the message "Your copy of Windows is already activated" or some garbage like that. I googled the problem, apparently it's fairly common. The only problem is, none of the solutions that were posted helped. I contacted Microsoft, and they said that I would have to do a fresh reinstall. Wipe and reinstall. So I'm ready to do that. I can get onto my computer via safe mode. I'm curious, is there a way to back up my files and such from safe mode so when I do the clean reinstall, I won't have to redownload and reinstall everything? If I can do it from safe mode, how?

Much thanks in advance.

 

The backup utility is located on the Windows installation disk and not installed on XP Home by default. If you have an external drive you could copy and paste files from one drive to the other. Flash drive prices have come down quite a bit as there is a glut of them available, while their storage capacity has gone up. Sorry I couldn't be of more assistance.

Got Root ?