Best free way to be able to restore my Dell D620

I don't need anything yet, but I would like to prepare for a big crash in advance.

This Dell notebook (bought used) did not come with an XP disk. I think there is a dedicated drive for a restore but I am looking for the best way to restore without losing data, etc.

It's an 80 gb machine. I have a 320 gb external available.

I'm looking for some guidance. Is it an ISO I need to create? or some sort of boot disk?

This is one aspect of computers I really don't 'get' because I haven't needed it yet. It is currently at XP SP3.

Thanks.

 

The easiest is just to make a regular backup using either Windows' own backup tool, or a dedicated software like Acronis True Image Home.

If something disastrous happens, you can just restore the last backup, and you have a working system with all installed programs, updates, and data.

 

A couple of good free backup applications: EASEUS Todo Backup Free Edition and Macrium Reflect FREE Edition.

 

Wouldn't you know it.

It crashed and wouldn't boot up. It didn't come with an XP CD so I couldn't figure out how to run an XP repair vs a complete reinstall.

I couldn't find a boot cd that I thought I created. Got very irritated so I eventually did the Dell restore option just to get the thing running again.

Luckily I had run a full backup very soon after I got the computer and a couple differential backups, though the latest was April 2012. I also had a full backup from my older notebook that died (it had most of the programs I still run).

So, now I know a lot more about backing up. Still not sure about the iso image route...as in how big would the image file be to cover an 80gb hard drive?

The only problem so far is not being able to hibernate or standby, which it had no problems doing before the restore. They are grayed out at the shut down screen, My Spacemonger shows I have the standby sys file on the root drive, but not hiberfil.sys. Odd also that explorer doesn't show the standby file (i know about showing hidden files).