I am buying a PC which comes with a load of software preinstalled. I believe the harddisk will have a partition which will contain rescue files. (I think this is basically an image file which I can use to restore my PC using the Rescue CD supplied by the PC maker.)

Can I backup the image file on to CD or DVD so that I can protect against ever damaging the partition and loosing my "install files". (As I will never have install CDs of the software I will own, I want to ensure that I will never loose this data. It would be my only way of "reinstalling" the software.)

Will Collins, February 2004

The best way to do this would be to use DriveImage or Norton Ghost. These tools make a complete blind copy of the entire hard disk. if you have problems at a later date you can restore the whole hard disk to the state it was when you made your copy.

This is quite a good way to protect your PC because you don't have to spend ages working out what the fault was.

Both of these will split up the large backup file they make into CD size chunks. You can then burn some CDs. This means you can always restore your system if you need to by using the CDs.

Keith, February 2004