recovery disks?

[badbadtz560]

Is there any free software or cheap software that allows you to make your own recovery disk for a computer?

I think Nliteos only lets you customize the windows installation; however, I'd also like to have the disk automatically install some other programs and drivers so that I don't have to spend an entire night reinstalling software after a reformat (software like norton, photoshop, vlc, codecs, etc.). Is there anything that can let you do this?

I know some brand name computers have those recovery programs that let you install recovery settings onto another hd, and all you have to do is stick a recovery disk in upon rebootfor it to run the recovery. If there's someting like that, it'd be great too.

I did try window's recovery under the system tools, but it doesn't seem to completely recover everything. I'm thinking complete erasing of the main drive and then reinstallation of everything I had when I set the recovery settings. Is there anything that does this?

 

[Gorankar]

What you prolly want is disk imaging software like ghost, acronis, or drive image pro.. Lets you make a full backup that can be restored in minutes.. They are not free..
But some mobo manufacturers include disk imaging software on the driver cd that comes with their motherboards.. Gigabyte used to.. Don't know who does that now..

Acronis or Ghost are really worth the money IMHO..

Google "Hiren's boot cd".. I believe it contains shareware versions of older versions of a couple different disk imaging software..

 

[OldMX]

Image for DOS is a great little program, its very similar to ghost and costs less than 20 bucks.

screenshots

oldmx