How do I make a free Bootable Image Of C: Drive

[AnthonyG]

Hi,

I am waiting of my Windows SP2 cd and i had the bright idea (due to my computer seller instead of giving my a bunch of sortware to install they gave me one cd that i boot up my machine with and it resets all my OS and software back to its original settings)

So i was wondering if i could make a complete bootable image of my C drive on a CD with my XP2 installed my antivirus installed and all my other software installed too. So i can if any more problems arise (see my norton firewall problem topic to see what i mean) i can simply boot up this new image and save a heck of a lot of time.

I want a free bootable image i dont want to have to install software to use the image or load floppy disks or other cd's i just want a free standing bootable image that i can power up my pc and will automatically reset my machine (just like the CD i got with the machine), so can i ask which software can i use to do this. and if so is it relieable as i dont want to come around to use it and find errors in the backup. I tried Norton ghosts CD/DVD bootable backup option, but it is asking for 2 floppies to do it, so i stopped immediately there and didnt go ahead with the process. I know with Drive Image 8.0 you need to use a boot CD first (which i dont want to do)

Any other suggestions, or is there a way to configure Ghost to do it (as i already have that)

Thanks

[iwod]

I think true image allow that.

Are you sure Driveimage doesn't work. According to my memory Drive image has this ablity.

Can't you write the files saved into floppy drive into the CDR?

[Devinco]

Hi Anthony1UK,

Ghost 7 required boot floppies (and also didn't fully support NTFS).
But with Ghost 8 (2003), no boot floppies, full NTFS support, and best of all Bootable CD images. In windows you just select what you want to backup and where you want to backup to (CD) select compression level (go for High compression) and other options, click ok and reboot. It will automatically start the DOS mode of Ghost and begin the backup.
If the partition(s) don't fit on 1 CD/DVD, it will span it across as many as needed. When complete, it reboots into windows.
To restore, just boot from the CD and it will load DOS Ghost and start the restore.
I have tested the full backup and restore to and from CD twice with this version and it worked.