I'm just getting into flying quads and bought a drone from someone in our club.
I'm learning betaflight and have gotten as far as flashing with the latest firmware.

before I flashed, i did save the preset.

Once I have the fimrware updated, I should be able to reload the presets right?
I imagine the presets do not store firmware information and reloading the preset should not make any changes to the firmware right?

thanks for any help.

it depends the firmware version, you should be able to paste the "preset" ( the dump or diff file if i understand you right?) from 4.2.3 to 4.2.9 without issue
. for a minor release; from bf4.2.x to bf4.3.x you shouldnt paste any pid tune or filters, also some rates settings shouldnt be copied.

what is your actual version and what version do you like to flash?