This is what I do every day just before shuttig the pc down.
First of all I created a folder in my hard drive and named it guess what? Backups
then just before shutting the pc down, browse to the relevant directories in your Primary drive the one where the OS is installed and copy all the contents of Outlook Experrs in the Backup folder, while there also copy all the contents of the Outlook Express Address Book, finally copy also the contents of your Favorite folder, then if you must reformat transfer all the Backup Folder into a RW-CD reformat the drive, once reformatted you can then copy all the contents of the Backup folder you saved in the cd-rom to the relevant folders in the Master Drive.
As far as being able to backup Outlook Express onlly emails, again it's very easy, create a list of folder in your hard drive exactly matching the folders names in Outllok Express, then just Drag and Drop each conetnt of the Outlook Express folders to the relevant Foldrs you jsut created, to read such folders then you need a program like the one micker377 suggested or you can grab a copy of Outllok DBX reader/ectractor, do a search on google for it, I don't remember if it's freeware although I believe so, use this litte nifty program to extarct each email you backed up, it will extract each email individually which you can then read as an html file easily. Good Luck
FYI, the Outloox Express foldeers in XP are located in:
c:\documents and setting\your name\local settings\application data\identities\{unique identifier}\microsoft\outlook express
The Address Book location is in:
c:\documents and settings\your name\application data\microsoft\address book
The favorite folder location is in:
c:\documents and settings\your name\favorites
NOTE, for your name I mean the name you selected for yourself when you installed windows xp, not USER of Default user
