There are 2 apps worth noting about this. Ready?
CLONEZILLA
ACRONIS
The free one is pretty good and great for the price. I use it to save an image of the entire drive to "a file on another drive." There are some caveats such as to restore that image, the restore target drive must be same or larger in size.
Acronis can be confusing to some but it can overcome that caveat I noted.
-> That covers the image backup. And as we leave that topic be sure you set this up to backup when you don't need the PC for a while. I start such at night and it usually is finished in the morning.
But this is only the beginning of backups. I use Goodsync, Syncback and Dropbox to sync files with devices when I feel it's time.
Bob
I read most of the 180 hot topic comments, but realized that Rick Broida doesn't actually moderate it, and I don't know whose suggestion makes sense for me. I have 2 desktops witha D-Link router, both using XP. Main PC has two hard drives C & F both with XP. F: is my data drive but has software installed (whenever the option to do so is given) as well. Upgrades likely find their way to the appropriate drive, who knows? Anyway, I would like to back-up my computer in total--not just data files, but operating system and programs. Years ago I used to get the computer store to make a disk copy--is that still a valid option?

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