clean install of 3.0

[sigma957]

Hey all,

I've got YDL 2.1 (fuji) installed on my Performa 6400/200 (it's mint except 
for the NIC and the 30g HD), and it's been chugging along for a few years 
now as our file server (we've got a mixed Mac/PC network, so this has been 
VERY nice). It's been running headless for this time, and I've been ssh'ing 
in from the other machines to maintain it.

Now I'd like to update the OS on this (probably to 3.0, if I can discover 
if that version works on this hardware), and after trying the apt-get 
workaround (which didn't work), I'd like to try another tack and just do a 
clean install from CD.

My only real problem is that I don't have another place to backup the data 
on the machine without going into "toaster mode" on my CD burning station. 
Is there a how-to on installing the new OS without repartitioning the data 
on the root drive (I'm more than happy to stick all of the stuff into /misc 
while installing the new OS.

Thanks!

Ripstop