Looking to burn up a backup DVD of my fresh install of XP Pro - I6000

Inspiron 6000, for reference. I already reformatted, which was easy since I've done it 3-4 times on previous laptops. I've got all my drivers installed, all services tweaked to specifications I like, I've got my files transferred over from my other computer, and I'd like to burn a DVD backup in case I need to restore. How would I go about doing this?

 

Get a disk imaging program like Norton Ghost. I don't use Ghost myself, but I hear it can image directly to DVD.

You'll need either an external floppy drive or a memory key to boot from and run the disk imaging program. It tends to take a bit more effort (but worthwhile, IMO) to make a bootable memory key than a floppy.

There are details of one approach to using Ghost for back-up, at radified.com.

 

Scratch that, I made a complete backup of my hard drive with Nero's feature. I installed all the updates, uninstalled what I didn't want, and basically put everything I wanted to be there if I needed to reinstall. It just fit on two DVDs, so now I have a full restore of my current configuration if I want to. Nero will restore to either a full hard drive or a partition, so there's plenty of options. And now I'm safe from system crashes. I think for it to work though it has to try to boot from the optical drive first, so if I ever do need to restore I'll have to change the boot options in my BIOS first.

 

http://ww2.nero.com/enu/FAQs_Products_NeroBurningROM_Data.html#13

Nero's instructions on how to restore...should be easy enough if I ever need to.

 

Looks good. I didn't Nero had such a feature.

As far as booting from the optical disk you should be able to press F12 during boot to have it prompt you which disk to boot from. I have mine in more or less the original configuration with the HDD first and just use the F12 when I need to. This way it'll only boot from other than the HDD when I intend it and not if I forget and leave a bootable CD/DVD or memory key in.