Hard Drive Cloniong

Hi

I would like to create an image file / clone my hard drive directly after having reformatted and reinstalling all my software as a back up mesure.

Is it possible to burn this image to a dvd / cd?

If so how ie what is the best (free ware) software to do this?)

Thanks.

My Machine is running win xp and using ntfs file system

 

In theory you can back up entire hard drives to CD( boy would you need a lot) or DVDs and the number of these would depend on how much data you have on the PC and how much you want to pay for the DVDs (single/double sided)

having looked at this it should be able to do the job and as requested it's free.

http://majorgeeks.com/Lexun_Backup_Solution_d3785.html

good luck http://www.getsmile.com/emoticons/smileys-91853/u/lamer.gif

 

Also look at http://www.macrium.com/ReflectFree.asp

 

Thanks.

Would you suggest then rather saving the image to seperate partition on the hard drive? rolleyes

 

The best way is to clone your hard drive to an external drive.

they are not that expensive and you just put it somewhere safe updating it periodicaly

 

Can I clone and save the image to a spare partition on the same drive I'm cloning from?

And or, simply clone the most important (primary) partition?

 

It's possible, though I also endorse the external drive option because if your physical drive breaks down, you will lose your backup also.