[Masterman10]

I am planning to get some backup software for my computer. My problem is that I have a dual operationg system with Vista and XP. I want a software that will backup the entire computer as it is and then if something happens it will load from the startup screen and put my computer back, ie. the partitions and operating systems and all that. Does anyone know of such a software that I can get or buy?
p.s. I apologize if this is the wrong forum but I couln't find one that I thought would be best to put it in so I did this one.

[MowermanEd]

I would reccomend Acronis True Image 11 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...2E1681591339SF
Many users on this forum use and reccomend it. It will make a complete image of your system or backup individual partitions. It has saved my butt several times over the years and I would not own a computer without it.

[TechB]

I second the recommendation of Acronis True Image.

[Masterman10]

yeah i have checked that out. it is at the top of my list. i did a trial of the 10 version months ago. yet i never thought of checking to see if it covers dual booting. so but of what you know it will back up both OS without me having to redo the whole dual boot again? so i just have to plug it in and run it off my external hard drive?

[MowermanEd]

It will back up your "entire" drive including the boot sector for any and all OS's you have on the drive. However, I don't believe you'll be able to run your backed up OS from the USB drive. You can restore it to whatever drive you wish (assuming space permiting) but it must first be restored before it can be run.

[Masterman10]

sorry. what i meant to say was that can i restore via USB. I have a 80GB external hard drive and i am going to put the backup on there. I just did not want a backup that could not be restored via USB. such as one i used to have where you already had to have a OS on your computer to restore another OS (never made sense to me).

[DaveA]

Yes, you can save the images to a USB external drive.
I do this on my Beta machine. I save a image before installing the Beta software, and if things go wrong or I need to do a clean start, I just restore the last image.

[Masterman10]

awesome, i think ill go with true image since its so reccomended. thanks to everyone's advice.

[TechB]

I create the recovery CD which is bootable then do all my imaging from the recovery CD. This way it will image any OS. And yes it will save the images to most USB drives.