This requires special software. This cannot be done natively with XP. Some
imaging software such as Drive Image 2004, www.powerquest.com or Ghost,
www.symantec.com may support this option.

Most backup software as opposed to imaging software mentioned above,
requires you to reinstall the operating system and then restore your backup.

Even with the above, make sure they support restoring an image from DVD as
opposed to CD-RW. That said, this is somewhat problematic as it usually
requires the user to create a boot disk that will load the correct drivers
for your drive and this is integrated into the boot disk you create with the
respective product.

What I do and would do even if I had a DVD burner is create a separate
partition where I store my image files. Then, if things go bad, I use the
imaging software boot disk to boot the system and get into the software,
then restore the image from the alternate partition.

This is of course useless if your hard drive fails which is why I also have
images stored elsewhere, one of which would certainly be on a DVD if I had
one. Under those conditions, I'd reinstall XP on the new hard drive,
install the imaging software and whatever was necessary for my burner to
read disks, copy the image file to a new partition on the new hard drive and
then restore the image. I'm not saying you should do this but I have seen
burner access using such boot disks can be a bit problematic and the
software finicky about restoration.

--
Michael Solomon MS-MVP
Windows Shell/User
Backup is a PC User's Best Friend
DTS-L.Org: http://www.dts-l.org/

"Bob" <rbimbi@comcast.net> wrote in message
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