Harddrive Backup

After repairing my sisters computer i realized that repairing a faulty OS on a laptop would be indeed way more complicated than a standard desktp PC. I am awae that dell laptops come with their own recovery partition, but they are just not what i need. I was wondering what programm could i use to back up the entire harddrive, to just repair it from clean when i have to (my OS's die in no time ). I think norton ghost offers a similiar option, where you add programs you would like to have on your system recovery. I am just looking for a good Hard drive (os + progrmas+ documents+ settings) backup- recovery tool. Any Sugestions?

 

I've used ghost for years and have been very happy with it, if you want to try something different google "drive imaging software" and you should come up with quite a few competeing products

 

but can ghost compress, burn to a dvd-dL and di it frim the os?

 

Can I get a program that could copy the entire contents of my OS (installed apps, games, profiles, everything) onto another hard disk and boot from it and use it instead of my old one?

I saw this:

http://www.acronis.com/

 

it does use compression, and you can mount the image to optical media, or flash drive,hard drive, etc thats large enough to accomodate the image

 

I use Acronis True Image. Version 10. So far I have not needed to restore an image to a new hard drive however I have used the clone utility and it works.

 

but after reading these... http://www.notebookforums.com/showthread.php?t=149197&highlight=norton+ghost
i have my doubts, i was thinking about making a dvd back up of my harddrive that could be booted and used to restore it, includingmedia direct, but now i dont know. Their system seems to work, and i would like the option to recreate the image file every month for back up...

 

Check the Acronis website. I've researched ghost and True Image and according to the reviews True Image was recommended over Ghost (usually). (It was only $32 as a download from newegg)

 

looks good but my question is if it is compatible with media direct, i am looking to configure my hard drive this way:
media direct partition: media direct
Windows partition: instalation file with games, programs, etc.
Data partition: Music, files, downloads, etc.
Recovery partition: containing the image file and being able to updtae it.

 

I've recommended it here before. Acronis True Image is the only way to go, imho. Especially for multi-partitioned hard drives.

 

i just decided to go with image backuo, its better (for advance users) than true image, it gives more posibilities in back ups and recovery, so i guess that will be my way to go now.