-----Original Message-----
You need a 3rd-Party "Imaging" program. There are at least
3-4 that posters on this newsgroup recommend.
Symantec Ghost
PowerQuest Drive Image
BootItNG
True Image
Most work from a Dos-Boot floppy or CD. Newer products
like PowerQuest Drive Image 7.0 will do the backup while XP
is running.
Make sure you understand the differences between the terms
Backup and Image. A image is an exact duplicate of the entire
drive compressed into one a several modules. A backup is more
of a readable copy of important documents and files. (Mailbox,
My Documents, My Pictures, etc)
The terms Backup and Image get used interchangeably, but there
is a difference.
**Whatever program you decide to buy, be sure when you image
to choose an option "Verify". This creates the backup and then
immediately compares it to the original media. It takes more
time but you get a higher level of confidence it will work when
you need to recover your system partition.
"