Reformatting a right pain, all that reloading of software and getting it right, why not have another HD (new very expensive due to floods) and ghost it saves the pain but always have a backup of important info
Dont rely on USB sticks!!!!Use a cloud service AND email files to yourself.I have lost loads of tunes I have been working on due to fails on memory sticks especially when moving from one studio to another to do work. Now I always make sure to copy to more than one stick in addition to the above.iCloud is my new friend. So pleased Steve Jobs is up there managing my files for me.
the email idea only works if you use an email address like hotmail or virgin (which looks very very unprofessional) or if you have your emails set up to leave them on the server, which is unlikely as iirc most programs will set it to download the files locally and remove from server.