Cloning/masking image of HD

[zodiacmaster]

I am wanting to make a image of my harddrive it is a 80 gb I believe
Compag computer
80 Gig HD
Windows Xp

Basicly I want something I can reinstall my OS without 15 disks and will not reinstall all the useless stuff I do not use is this possible and if it is how do you use the disk to wipe and reinstall off the disk?

Never done this disk image stuff before.

[alan2273]

A disk image needs another drive on your computer or an external one toput the image on.
There are several free imaging programs here.
http://selfimage.excelcia.org/
Also have a read of this.
http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=1124

[patio]

I'd recommend Macrium Reflect if you are looking for a Free solution...
And you would have to create a partition/folder on another drive as stated above...you cannot create an image of a drive/partition on the same partition you are imaging.

Make sure it's a partition/folder that does NOT get defraged....image files hate that.

[Geek-9pm]

The only thing I can add is...
buy a spare hard drive for an image backup.