Need help making image of Windows XP OS

[Z52]

I know that Windows 7 have a feature where I can make an image of the HDD and save it in an external hard drive.

Is there any way I can create an image of my XP and save it in an external hard drive?

 

[newtekie1]

Acronis True Image is probably the best option to do this.

 

[Z52]

Any guide I should follow? I never did it before so a guide will be very helpful.

 

[Drone]

Use Norton Ghost.

Here's a great manual from their official ftp

ftp://ftp.symantec.com/public/english_us_canada/products/ghost/15/manuals/ngh_15_user_guide.pdf

scroll to page 197, chapter 15. You can find everything you need there

 

[twilyth]

Most imaging programs will walk you through the process.

If you have the space, you can also create a virtual drive image from your current boot partition. This will let you run your old computer's OS with all of the installed programs (assuming they are installed on the boot drive) on a virtual machine on any other computer. You would just need VMWare's VMPlayer which is free.

Here are some of the utilities that will do this. They are generally referred to as P2V (or V2V) utilities. You just have to make sure you pick the right virtual drive type for the VM software you will be using. I think VMWare Player is the best and I've used it pretty extensively.

VMWare vCenter Converter (free - I think, formerly know as VMWare Converter)
Paragon's GoVirtual (not free)
Microsoft's Disk2VHD (free)

Acronis will also do this I think but I would have to check.

 

[remixedcat]

WMWare FTW!!!

 

[RejZoR]

I prefer PING or EASEUS Todo Backup. Very simple to use and powerful. And free!