[AT] OT Computer help

[charlie hill]

I need some help quick!

I'm having a problem with the hard drive on my notebook.  I suspect from a 
bad lightning storm the other night.  Anyway I have a new external drive and 
I need to transfer the operating system and some critical work software from 
the on-board drive in the laptop to the external drive.  I need to do it in 
such a way that I can boot from the external drive and run the work 
software.  I've got work to get out today and I don't know any other way to 
fix the problem or how to transfer the files.   Right now the computer is up 
and running but I've lost about half of my desktop Icons,  the computer is 
crashing and I occasionally get a message saying I have low virtual memory 
although there is a good bit of room left on the drive.

Thanks for the help.

Charlie