Windows XP Backup Software

[Wake]

I am looking for some backup software for my friends XP and was wondering if anyone knew of any that are good? Doesn't have to be free but would prefer it. Note that I am not looking to back up files, but the actually OS so if something happens I can just pop in a disk or plug in an external with the data on it and I can restore the OS to how it was before it being messed up or whatever if something were to happen to it.

Thank you for your time!

[† L4ugh]

I think that the restore option in Windows has the ability to make a backup image of the OS, but I don't remember if that feature is built into the XP version.

For a complete backup and partitioning suite, I would try a live linux distro like Parted Magic, GParted, Clonezilla, or SystemRescueCD. All are free open source versions to retail software similar to Norton Ghost. They offer you the ability to create, delete, resize, move, and back up partitions. They can also backup entire harddrives if need be. One of the best features of these distros is that one of the programs in them can backup an entire partition or HDD without backing up any of the unused sectors of the partition. So if you have a 50g partition that only has 10g of data written to it then only that 10g of data will be backed up. It should be noted that backing up the windows partition only won't back up the MBR.

Personally, I think I would recommend Parted Magic. I've been meaning to use it to backup my own OS for a while now, but I've been to lazy to bother with it yet.

[Wake]

I checked out the XP, nope, no ability to make a backup image of the OS.

Thank you very much for the info and the recommendations, this will help a great deal!