The best option is to get a new hard drive. You can find one for $100.
Then just connect your old drive to the PC with a USB to SATA adapter and copy any files you need.
With the extra drive there is no risk to your data from the install as long as you DON’T CONNECT THE OLD DRIVE DURING THE INSTALL PROCESS, since you could conceivably choose the wrong install disk. If it’s not plugged in then you can’t choose it
The economy must transition from fossil fuels to other forms of energy. The longer we take the worse it will be, but nobody in power feels any urgency.
Add to that the GFC of 2008 that we “fixed” by printing money, and which was followed by a global pandemic and financial slowdown that… we fixed by printing money.
Now factor in the fact that we didn’t use 2008 to tighten banking regulation, and we have just as many opaque financial instruments (derivatives, swaps) as we did back then.
And all of this as global warming kicks into absolute overdrive, likely due to a feed forward mechanism being tripped such as the methane release from Siberia and/or the clathrate gun going off.
We are well and truly fucked. This reality is noticable if you’re paying attention, and will slowly become impossible to miss (let alone ignore).