Backup (Ghost) and Restore?

[daedal]

I picked up an old 700mhz PC for my dad. I've installed and fully configured and tweaked Windows XP on the machine, including all patches and such.

Is there a way I can backup the whole installation and make that image easily restore-able in case he breaks everything down the line? :D

If so, where do I begin? I've never dabbled into backups before.

[Azhar]

Damn man. Do you hate your dad that much? 700mhz? lol

Acronis is probably the best software to date if you're willing to shell out $40 for the home version.

But if you're looking for free solutions, check out your hard drive manufacturer's web sites for their utilities. Most of them offer downloadable software you can use to clone your drives or take snapshots of it.

[OldMX]

DriveImageXML + BartPE = :D

[Cmustang87]

Acronis as Azhar said is great software and relatively inexpensive that you can reuse. I would invest in it.

[requiemnoise]

Clonezilla. It is free and open source and has more drive modules than Acronis. Arcronis rescue cd is 2.4 kernel Linux rescue cd. Clonezilla will have up to date drivers for your nics.