Drive Imaging Tool

[Furiousg]

I have just recently formatted and re-installed Xp on one of my drives. Seeing as how long it took me to do this time I want to "Image" my fresh install to make it quicker next time.

Does anyone have any favorite tools they use for such a task?
I have looked around a bit and seen Norton Ghost, Acronis Image, WinImage...but I don't know what I should really be looking for.
Thx

[nwg]

I use both Norton and Arconis. Acronis is the better one and also comes in a trial version.

[Furiousg]

I have Downloaded the trial for Acronis 9, but I was unsure if it used it's own file format for the backup, meaning after the trial expires would the image still be of any use to me??
Are tips for a newbie??

Thx for the input.

[UncasMS]

drive image from powerquest

[Furiousg]

Ahh...the same company that does Partition Magic right?? I'll look into that one too, as I have used Partition Magic before with no problems.

[nwg]

They all use their own format to store the images. After the trials expires, the software won't work.

There is also Drive Snapshot which is just a 160k program. It costs 39 Euros.

30 day trial.

http://www.drivesnapshot.de/en/down.htm

[Furiousg]

That's kind of what I had figured.
I think I will give Arconis a try seeing as I have the trial for it already. Maybe I'll try make an image with each trial ( I did like Powerquest )to see which one I like, just to try them out.

How long do they usually take to rip an image?? I don't have very much on the drive right now, just the basics ( and DVD tools of course ). Or do they still have to do something with the unused space of the drive?

[nwg]

Acronis took about 15 minutes to do 6GB on high compression. It went down to just over 2GB.

[Furiousg]

Oh nice. That's pretty quick. And I didn't even realize that it would do any compression. I should be able to fit my entire drive on a single DVD5 then.
I can't wait to get home and start messing with it Thx !