Below is the text of an article I read in yet another free newsgroup - Trevor:
If that fails, you could use the freeware program Drive Image XML
http://www.runtime.org/dixml.htmI haven't used it, but have heard it is a capable program that is slower and less feature rich than Acronis True Image.
There was a follow-up post dated 31 Oct 2006:
http://www.acronis.com/mag/vnu-ati7 and read the whole thread
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.comp.freeware/browse_thread/thread/9af5eb8e1a6a56c4/1489103424442a2f?#1489103424442a2f--
Ivan V. Klattrup
http://www.klattrup.dk
For the NT based OS such as Win 2K and XP I like XXCLONE: http://www.xxclone.com/
For Win 9X/ME I like XXCOPY: http://www.xxcopy.com/index.htm
Using these file cloners, it doesn't take two hours to be back up and running. I can boot up from my backup drive immediately.
Restoring my main drive (cloning it from backup takes just a few minutes with XXCOPY, and about 25 minutes with XXCLONE, since it doesn't do incremental backup.
Art -- http://home.epix.net/~artnpeg