Back-up instaled windows

[fanem008]

Hy everyone!

So, i have instaled my windows xp, and all my drivers and programs, now want to create a back-up cd/dvd, that will contain all my programs and drivers and of course,my windows.

It that possbile? with what program.

[eksasol]

There are lots of softwares that can do this, its called disk cloning. The partition is saved as in image file to be restored later. A good free software for this is CloneZilla. It can boot from a disc or a USB drive as well. I set it to compress the partition image to "lzma" (used by 7zip), takes a long time but the image size becomes smaller.

If you prefer something with easy to understand GUI, there is DriveImageXML, but I don't really use. There is also the retail Acronis TrueImage, which can create a bootable rescue disc. There is the classic Norton Ghost, but I haven't use it.

Also if in the case that you restored the partition and Windows doesn't boot, you'll need to manually set the partition as "active" (To do so, I use the bootable software GParted and flag the partition as "boot".)

Edited September 16, 2009 by eksasol

[CoffeeFiend]

Look here for more. Either ways, acronis trueimage is where it's at IMO.

[fanem008]

thx a lot