backing up HD onto CDs/DVDs

what is the best way to back up the HD on laptop? i'd like something i can burn as .iso files onto a CD/DVD so that if my HD crashes i can restore the system via bootable media.

is there a way for me to create a bootable media backup (using a Windows utility or some other free software) that will allow me to copy the entirety of the HD in its current condition? Thanks

a

 

It's not free but SO worth the price. Acronis True Image 10. You can get a trial version for 30 days, I believe. What you do is make an image of your HDD in it's current state and then it images to either a network drive, external drive, extra partition space or DVD media. You can also create an Acronis Boot Disk in case you can't get into the OS to do the restore. It takes about 10 minutes to restore your HDD to the state at which you imaged it in in case something happens.

 

x2. Aronis is worth every penny. A very high quality piece of software. (the free trial is 15 days, not 30). I've used it twice now for backing up (and also restoring) two Windows 2003 servers and it worked flawlessly.

 

is there any freeware / open software that will allow me to do this?

alfio

 

I don't think so. AFAIK, there is norton ghost and acronis but acronis is much better. You can use a trial version for 15 days and then you have to pay for it. Just one use of reinstalling the os will make it pay for itself. No lie, from fresh install to all the updates and programs, it takes 6-7 hours to get xp up and running on my machine. With true image, I'm back in 10 minutes.

 

there are actually several free ones--but they are not as easy to use and don't always offer the all in one solution that Norton and Trueimage do (make image, burn to cd, use rebootable cd). For example, some would require that you burn the image to another drive. For a laptop, for example, you would drop the laptop drive in an eclosure or use an adapter, image it to a file on a different drive, and then restore it later if need be. Some free one's do offer the bootable dvd--or at least, you use the bootable program to restore the image as opposed to a self-booting image restore process.


See the following:

http://www.pcinspector.de/clone-maxx/uk/welcome.htm

http://ping.windowsdream.com/

http://dubaron.com/diskimage/

http://selfimage.excelcia.org/

http://www.runtime.org/dixml.htm

there are some more...just look for them on google

 

this is kind of a dumb question but what do you do once u boot from the disk that you created? i get to that screen and it says full and safe boot or whatver and whichever one i click just takes me to a blank screen. am i supposed to put in a new disk of information or what?

 

i third acronis