im totally and irrevolcalbly at a loss

[burkspatrick at comcast.net]

I got a copy of fedora core for a linux magazine and for a while everthing was running smoothly and it was release 7 and it has quit updating and i have been left in the dust and i looked up fedoras website and found out that theres a release nine and i have 7 and i have my computer just like i really want it so like how do i get everthing updated without majorly formatting my harddrive and losing everthing i mean nothing will update anymore and i am ticked off just a little.