Once again, I come to you to highlight the fact that, after 5 years of gaming and spending lots of money on a PC, I still have no idea how they work

Basically, I want to create a ghost of my HDD on my usb HDD, and I'm not sure exactly how to go about it, is it just a case of copy and paste the HDD registry on my computer or is there a special way/programme to do it? If I just copy>paste the drive, will I then be able to just paste it back onto my pc if all goes tits up, I'm aware that the drivers etc won't install this way, which is what leads me to believe that copy>paste isnt the way to create a ghost, as my understanding was that with a ghost drive you just double click and it puts your pc back to how it was?

If none of that is in any way correct, please tell me how to do it/where to find out how to do it

Cheers.

http://www.macrium.com/default.asp

Nice tool to create a snapshot of your HDD and the possibility to create a rescue cd so you can restore the drive when needed.

Can't you use the Backup and Restore feature that's part of Vista? Start> All Programs> Maintenance > Backup & Restore Center

Not tried it myself mind but it's part of the OS so free.

Cheers for the info, I didnt even know that existed beans, so Ill have a look into it.

Ack! It looks like that's just in Business and Ultimate versions so may not apply.

There is a backup files option in premium, but I dont know if it will do all of the drivers and suchlike, gonna give it a go and see what I end up with.

Cheers though!

edit: I dont think it does all of the drivers, but it does let you set up a weekly backup updater schedule which is a nice little thing.

Big difference with drivesnapshots and backups:

With a drivesnapshot you create an image of the disk. In case you need to restore a single file you can mount this image and pick the file you need and in case of total system failure you can boot from a CD and copy back the image which will return your PC to the state it was in when the snapshot was created.

With backups you can do the same for files as with snapshots, browse the backup data and copy the needed file. For system restore it's a bit different though. In case of total failure you still need to install windows and all updates, drivers etc. and then restore data from the backup.

I prefer the 1st option because of the speedy recovery option for failed systems. If you purely need to backup files the built-in backup functionality of Windows would do the trick.

Ultimate and Business versions can do both. Seems to be the first time that having the best version makes a big difference in functionality. I upgraded both my systems from 32 bit Premium to 64 bit Ultimate when I got them and hadn't really noticed much difference other than the optional crap it lets you download. I might try the Backup of Computer option when I get to work and see if I can back it up to my USB backup drive. Would save me a load of hassle if my laptop goes tits up.