Hey, I’m not even sure if I want to burn an ISO image or something else (I’M a bit of a daft person when it comes to computers :P). Okay, what I’d like to do:
I want to have an image of my system as it is at the moment, that I can always install. Unfortunately, I only have an ASUS recovery CD, so I don’t know if I can do it at all ??
You know, yesterday I had a virus, so I used my recovery CD, reinstalled all the drivers, the software, the updates… 4 hours. With an image of my current setup this might be quicker?
Sorry, I’m an absolute idiot when it comes to images. Never done it b4, no idea what I’m talking about ;D but I’d really like to have a clean image with all my favourite software installed and at all crucial (for the moment) windows updates to be quicker the next time.
Is there a way to do it with only recovery cds?
Is there a freeware programme that can do it for me?
Plz explain in great detail as I’m soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo images-dumb :-\
Thanks in advance (hope you get what I mean)
grampa
Hi old man (:)), neither I have done what you’re asking for (making an image of the system), but there’s a great freeware program for burning images called ImgBurn:
Sorry that I can’t help you but I do recommend that program!
LA
Wow, that was one lightspeed reply if I ever saw one.
Thanks m8 :-* . I’ll have a look at it and see if it suits my expert’s demands 
Bye for now
grampa
EDIT:
Have just had a quick glance at it and it looks interesting so far. Lemme check if I can find any information whether I can build my own “recovery cd” with it. That’d be great! ;D
just putting in my cent owrth
another burner
http://isorecorder.alexfeinman.com/isorecorder.htm
easy to do …
and free
Cheers for the clue!
As I’m currently a bit paranoid (had a virus yesterday - 4 hours of building my os from scratch :P) I countercheck, as of yesterday, every site with siteadvisor (I know, it’s not really any help but I look at the user comments). Someone states:
!!! Suspected site !!! !!! Sitio sospechoso o no confiable !!!This site was last updated: 11/17/2004 10:26 PM PST
(See foot of web page.)Very professional looking, but too many typos.
Claims a link with XP development by implication,
but no citations."Since the very beginning ISO Recorder has been a free tool (for personal
use). download site along with Easy CD and Nero and is used by a number of
companies around the world."
“It is recommended by MSDN” - No it isn’t.
“is used by a number of companies around the world”
What? And only 2 google hits?
Is that site safe? Is it a trusted app?
Sorry I’m being such a pain :-\ But I know I’ll eventually find the courage to have a look at it.
Thanks for helping me out - really, I hope this doesn’t look like I don’t appreciate it.
Cheers grampa
Keep them coming, please 
Just let me add; even though there are several great programs for burning images, I think there are few programs (at least free ones) for your specific purpose: making an image of your system, and not the least, make it possible to boot from a disc and let a program copy that image to your drive. There may be a free program for it, I think I’ve seen it. If so - wait for more replies here or google on it.
LA
That I’ll do.
Cheers m8.
So, keep 'em coming…
burning an image and making a bootable media are 2 very different things; it is no very hard to make your own bootable CD, but i don’t know if you can do it with just a recovery disc or the system files in your pc and don’t need an original os cd.
unattended options let you recognize a foreign driver for booting, ie a scsi drive, but it can be whatever you want as long as the $oem$ tree is respected:
“image drive” software let you make both actions: burning iso (or proprietary format) image, and make it bootable.
Some software in this category are ghost, acronis true image, drive image…
I don’t know of any freeware in this category (you can always have a search for “savepart”, “mr. mirror” or “maxblast”), but old commercial versions might have becomed free:
Imaging a partition on a CD supposes … that the partition is not larger then a CD.
If it is not allready the case, you have first to partition your harddisk and have your programs written on the dedicated programs partition, and not in program files.
Here still the same: most dynamic partition tools are commercial (Partition Magic…) but Ranish (i didn’t try it) is free:
Nevertheless, the system partition might still stay to big: in such an event, i don’t know the solution:
maybe a “spanning” option for numerous CD with a commercial imaging software, but it would maybe be more easy to just buy a second (small) harddisk, where you save all your data, downloaded software and drivers, and copy your system partition.
xxcopy is a good tool for this last task
http://www.xxcopy.com
but you must remember nothing is able to copy the entire system partition without closing windows (reboot or real Dos mode), except maybe acronis.
Once all of this has been said, Partition Saving (with BartPE if windows mode) seems a good freeware tool for what you want to do.
Thanks everyone for your superb advice.
However, I need some more time to understand all that’s been said. As soon as I’ll have succeeded, I’ll try to follow it
I didn’t think it’d be that hard but maybe I’ll manage anyways - thanks to your help (:HUG)
Keep 'em coming…
A grateful grampa
Even if I like image burner, I’d tend to say that infrarecorder (my fav and at this moment only burning proggie) does it just as fine for me. It has an easily accessible .iso burning function and never let me alone thus far.
INFRARECORDER is POST NERO.
And, above all, it’s free.
And great. 
Cheers grampa
of course you’ll need an additional proggie to do an image of your partition. And …sorry to say…the one I use is not being sold anymore…
InfraRecorder is my very favorite among burning programs, I only didn’t mention it because I’ve never used its image burning function.
It’s truly a wonderful little peace of software (I always start it from InfraExpress), and very “honest” - being open source.
LA
Stumbled across XXCLONE:
Have no idea if it’s related to the above mentioned XXCOPY.
LA
And, last but not least, InfraExpress has a very decorative desktop icon, you forgot to mention that, Löwenadler!
Am I wrong? It’s a thing to worship!
Poor ol’ Nero. Go and burn in hell, you fat emperor style bombast software ■■■■.
Mr. Kindahl’s prog has big balls, whilst still being on diet (an attribute NERO has totally lost)
Like the old emperor, NERO now is fat, silly, overblown, worshipped only by slaves who have to pay.
Time for a change.
http://infrarecorder.sourceforge.net/
Cheers
Have no idea if it's related to the above mentioned XXCOPY.
I didn’t know about it, but it is the same editor and it looks fine.
XXCOPY is in the first place a very better substitution for XCOPY, allowing a lot of parameters XCOPY is not able to handle; but XXCOPY clones whatever you want, except the entire system partition because of the boot sectors: there’s a trick for that with Win9X, but not with WinNT, and i suppose it is the reason why XXCLONE was developped.
interesting. i had a look at that http://infrarecorder.sourceforge.net/ and checked everything out about it. i meant read from users.
seems its buffer underrun ain’t very good though :-
cool looking freeware software though.
Personally i use DVDflick for all my movie burning. and InCD for copying files to dvd recordables or rewritable disc’s
I understand what that guy wants. and there must be a freeware software for making recovery discs. I’ve used such stuff thats come with Dell and HP laptop/desktops and they are good at what they do and ■■■■ simple
he could take a look at BartPE with selfimage plugin. i used it once but didn’t like it because it does sector by sector image burning of a HD instead of just the data like TrueImage, them two might support making recovery discs, not something i’ve had a look into with them
I understand what that guy wants. and there must be a freeware software for making recovery discs. I've used such stuff thats come with Dell and HP laptop/desktops and they are good at what they do and ■■■■ simplehe could take a look at BartPE with selfimage plugin. i used it once but didn’t like it because it does sector by sector image burning of a HD instead of just the data like TrueImage, them two might support making recovery discs, not something i’ve had a look into with them
I believed i had already evoked this situation:
Some software in this category are ghost, acronis true image, drive image....I don’t know of any freeware in this category (you can always have a search for “savepart”, “mr. mirror” or “maxblast”), but old commercial versions might have becomed free:
Download Old Versions of Norton Ghost for Windows - OldVersion.com
Once all of this has been said, Partition Saving (with BartPE if windows mode) seems a good freeware tool for what you want to do. http://damien.guibouret.free.fr/en/index_frame.html
As to synthetize the situation:
- no one gives a sh… about the iso burning software, it is very easy to find, even freeware.
- that is not so easy speaking of making bootable disks, and i remind moreover that Grampa does not have an original OS CD, but only a proprietary commercial recovery CD: junk, in other words, just being able to restore the machine in the same state you bought it, never a good idea…
All of what we think of will fail if it is not possible to make the bootable CD starting with a copy of the i386 folder from the pc. - last, but not least, and as i tried for it, even if one admits the preceeeding step to be successful, the hardest in it is to integrate to your boot CD with the OEM tree and syntax whatever drivers (including proprietary ones which might be provided not as inf/sys, but as exe) you might need.
I’ve tried using DriveImage XML, here, DriveImage XML Backup Software — Data Recovery
It’s never actually worked for me as I think my hard drive is failing so it consistently produces an error, but it should work just fine for you. And it’s relatively easy to understand.
I can also second the greatness of infra recorder. I’ve used it over and over again to produce 700 MB ISO’s of different linux distros and they all work flawlessly.
Dave