disk imaging and notebook PC

[Liam]

I'm getting a new Alienware laptop, and this version didn't have their
respawn disk image restore software available. So, I'm wanting to make
a disk image of the system as it is right out of the box before I start
doing things to it.
What is recommended?

I found some instructions on how to use Knoppix (free) but that
requires using multiple harddrives.
I'm not against removing the HD from the laptop, but I'd rather not.
I found DrvImagerXP which looks free as well (or at least demo) and it
looks like what I need, but I can't quite see find out how you can
restore an image from it onto the very partition holding the OS you're
booting from. I really don't want to use it unless I'm completely sure
about it.
I've used Ghost before at a previous job, and we had Ghost boot disks
that allowed you to restore images easily to the HD's main partition
which was nice...but we'd pull images off a server, not from a CD, so
I'm not sure how good it us on a notebook and making an image and
burning it to a CD.

So, any good recommendations on reliable, cheap if not free, and basic
and user-friendly imaging software recomendations that can use CD's and
not require HD's moving?

Thanks!
-Liam

 

[Roberto]

I'm getting a new Alienware laptop, and this version didn't have their
respawn disk image restore software available. So, I'm wanting to make
a disk image of the system as it is right out of the box before I start
doing things to it.
What is recommended?

I found some instructions on how to use Knoppix (free) but that
requires using multiple harddrives.
I'm not against removing the HD from the laptop, but I'd rather not.
I found DrvImagerXP which looks free as well (or at least demo) and it
looks like what I need, but I can't quite see find out how you can
restore an image from it onto the very partition holding the OS you're
booting from. I really don't want to use it unless I'm completely sure
about it.
I've used Ghost before at a previous job, and we had Ghost boot disks
that allowed you to restore images easily to the HD's main partition
which was nice...but we'd pull images off a server, not from a CD, so
I'm not sure how good it us on a notebook and making an image and
burning it to a CD.

So, any good recommendations on reliable, cheap if not free, and basic
and user-friendly imaging software recomendations that can use CD's and
not require HD's moving?

Thanks!
-Liam

we use Ghost 2003 & BootITNG , others have posted here that later versions
of Ghost [V.10 IIRC] are also capable of writing images to CD/DVDs
rgds
Roberto