ok I was wondering  if ther a way to back up the gather  data so if I reinstall my system I can reload the data and not loose all the  nodes  spawn points ??   I do sytem wipe and reload about every 3 months   so I can make suer I kee phte system clean and  upto date on drivers. with out having  mutli installs for hte graphics card. PLus it helps  to make sure I remove virus and keyloggers if I got any and thy not found.   It also seems tha the titaium node are harderto find than befoer ( seemdwhen they were having issues they changed the  number of nodes spawn   for this ore so i harder to get. )

Yes. You can back up all of your addons' custom settings. It depends on what system you are using, but I have XP and this is my path:

C:/Program Files/World of Warcraft/WTF/Account/(MyAccountName)/SavedVariables. Inside THAT folder is the general saved variables for all of your mods. I believe your Gatherer files would be there since they are cross-realm, cross-character settings.

If you're looking for more specific settings (per character) then you have to back up a step to:

C:/Program Files/World of Warcraft/WTF/Account/(MyAccountName)

and go further with:

C:/Program Files/World of Warcraft/WTF/Account/(MyAccountName)/(MyAccountName)/(MyRealmName)/(MyToonName)

Those files will save things like the awesome custom heal layout you have for just your shaman.

Now notice I gave you the path for XP but if you're using Vista I think it's just a bit different and there is a sticky thread at the beginning of this forum that will help you figure out what that path is. The important thing is knowing you're looking for your SavedVariables and that there are 2 kinds.

Another, simpler way to "back up" your Gatherer database is download the whole DB of nodes and import them. You can do the same with GatherMate.