Restoring non-time machine backup.

Hello, all.

So I've screwed my MacBook up and am making a copy of the entire hard drive on an external disk. As the OS is bad, I'm not using time machine. I just selected all the files on the hard drive and dragged them over to the external.

I'm going to reinstall the OS (Snow Leopard if I can find the disk, if not, Leopard) and want to get my old stuff back. Supposing the OS loses my files, how do I replace the clean hard drive in the computer with my backup? Do I merely drag and drop everything and rewrite all the files?

Thanks so much,
KP

You can certainly try it that way, however, keep in mind that any program which uses a complex installer probably won't work. Make sure you have the original disks or images of those types of programs in case you need to reinstall them from start.