One lesson I have learned rather painfully over the years is not to attempt anything remotely complicated after midnight, so I will revisit this thread on the morrow, but I appreciate all the comments so far, and if anybody has any others I'd be delighted to receive them.
As far as backups go, it's not the backup procedure itself that is the worry, rather the medium on which the backup is made. I'm just trying to avoid the use of multiple CD's.