Help - Need to import direct to vB database

[Billspaintball]

Im changing from my current news posting program to using a vB forum.
Ive a heap of archived items and dont want to loose them.

I want to do a mass import into vB instead of entering them one by one (also dont want to loose the origional post time either.)

My plan is to export the sql table from the origional database, modify it to fit in with the vB scheme (rename fields etc) and then import it direct to the database.

So my question is really, what db fields are essential, and what can be ignored when I modify the table before import?