Best full image backup software?

Hey guys,
Looking for some recommendations on the software which you would consider the best for backup purposes. I'm looking for full drive backup, to another hard drive. Looking for the ability to restore directly from that backup, utilizing a bootable CD of some sort. So, what I"d be looking for would be the ability to be back up and running as soon as I could get a replacement drive and restore the operating system and data directly from backup, right into the status it was in before the crash.

Automation is welcome also...I'd like to schedule backups to run every so often, and have the application take care of it.

I doubt there's anything free out there like this, but if there was, that would be great...but I'll gladly accept any recommendations.

Thanks for your help!

Mike

 

I use Acronis 8 works great for mirroring and incremental backups. Able to produce an emergency boot cd. Am able to restore my entire hdd if necessary.

I stayed with Acronis 8 due the the bugs reported in Acronis 9. Hear many bugs have been corrected in Acronis 10.

No, it's not free, but well worth the small cost for the peace of mind.

Just my opinion.

 

Thanks for your help! I've obtained Acronis 8, and it works great! Just scheduled my weekly backup jobs, and tested it last night...it ran flawlessly. Also the boot CD works great.

Thanks again!

Mike

 

I'm surprised you could still find Acronis 8 out there. Had to get mine on Ebay.

Has saved my a-- on a number of occasions. Had HDD failure, no notice, happens sometimes.

Took the internal HDD out of it's external usb 2 case, which I cloned as a primary drive with Acronis 8, replaced the failed HDD in my PC with it, booted right up, back in buisness!

Acronis 8 has served me well for quite some time.

Glad you like the software.