what offboard storage does it have? ie does it have a cd burner, does it have a floppy or zip drive, what machine are you attempting to back up the data on?
what i would recommend is to install linux on that machine. if you use mandrake, you can use diskdrake during the install to resize the current windows stuff to the back half of the drive, you can then install mandrake on the first half of the drive and then you will have a fully functional system running on the machine, all you need to do is mount the windows partition somewhere (which mandrake will have done automatically during the install process) and bob's yer uncle, fanny's yer aunt.
what do you think?