How best to fully backup/mirror an entire computer including programs?

Question

I have already in place a backup drive to save essential data. But in case of theft, I would like to mirror my whole computer to a large external drive (500gb) so it would be easy to restore not just the data but also the OS, drivers and programs. I have a decent PC with Win XP. Thanks.

Answer 1

One of the best utilities I have used is Acronis True Image 10.0
- it has a simple wizard interface and allows you to back up entire disks, partitions or directories - you can then use the image to restore the entire disk or individual folders etc.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Acronis-True-Image-10-Home/dp/B000JQIDB8/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/026-0973370-5326055?ie=UTF8&s=software&qid=1179400089&sr=8-1

Acronis site:
http://eu.acronis.com/homecomputing/products/trueimage/

you can also backup to dvds or cds and make them bootable; if you buy the retail box version, the included cd-rom is itself bootable so you can load it into any unbootable pc and extract data from the drives. It's worth reading the manual!

DriveImage XML is similar and free
http://www.runtime.org/dixml.htm

Answer 2

I use norton ghost.
I run two hard drives both around the same size and I can clone one hard drive onto the other. It takes around 40 min to fully clone but I only do this once every couple of weeks.
If you get a virus or the hard drive crashes just start the computer from the other hard drive then clone the good drive over the infected drive that will be automatically reformatted.

If you loose a drive then you only loose the info since the last time you cloned and you don't have to spend 2 days reloading all your programs,and you will be up and running as fast as you can say start-up disc.

Answer 3

www.acronis.com
The Home version should do it for you, Norton Ghost were first on the scene, but over the years since SYmantec took over, its now a hit/miss when come to restoring.