Making a HD image

[dal]

Hi all, has anyone tried making a image of their hard drive and putting it onto a DVD. I didnt even realise you could do this until I got a PC mag a few months ago and there was a utility on the disc for doing so.
Thing is I do reformat every 6 -12 months & I find it a real bind putting all my games/ programs back on, having to re download service packs/ updates ect & thought It might be a idea once I've reformatted & put all the essential stuff on & basically got it how I want it make a image of the HD.

 

[IKMS]

I think the Windows Backup utility has an option for backup on a CD.

If you are on about whole HD Image then would you be able to get a disc big enough?

 

[Mick-1965]

Acronis True Image (ATI) can do this.
My win 7 install with all the apps and drivers etc is about 25 GB, the Image file ATI produces is about 10 -11 GB which is stored on another drive. But you can also tell ATI to chop the image it creates up into more manageable chunks of 4.7GB which can then be written to DVDR.

 

[ennogs]

I have noticed a lot of new PC's from the the big manufacturers come with an image to reinstall the OS. My mate only has to press F12 on his PC to restore his system back to when he bought it. Anyody know how you can set it up that way? It would make reformating my PC a lot quicker and easier if I had an image with the all the updates etc already installed. I would prefer to have the OS image on my second drive (storage drive) and a copy on my back up USB drive.