Do you do regular backups of your hard drive? If so, which backup utility do you use?

I'm running XP Home and have an external hard drive that I could use to back up to. I'm looking for advice on doing backups and restores. There's lots of expertise here, and I hope someone can help.

Thanks-

I use Acronis True Image:

www.acronis.com...

and Genie Backup Manager:

www.genie-soft.com...

I use the Original and still the Best....

Norton Ghost.

Edit Added:

Just be sure to keep the image burnt on disc because no matter what software you use all images are vulnerable to malicious code!

[edit on 7-8-2008 by MrMysticism]

I do backups at work, but I have never made a backup of my home computer, I have been lucky.

At work I use a very crude method, 7Zip and some scripts, but I am going to change the method when I will change computer and OS, so this thread could also help me.

I agree that Acronis is one of the best for imaging a hard drive. It is very user friendly. Norton Ghost is good, but Norton has this way of being such a resource hog, even in a shell environment, that I wouldnt trust it unless you have an above average system.

Since you are using XP, dont forget the other short term lifesaver that so many overlook...Restore Points. RP has saved my butt more than a few times.

Not true with Acronis. It creates a fat partition that is invisible and inaccessible to windows. Acronis then creates a little boot option when you start up your restart your computer. By clicking "load" (or whatever) when it blinks the option for a few seconds it completely loads Acronis with that fat space and allows you to restore an image from outside windows. It's brilliant and the best solution I've ever used.

Though I do have my C partition fresh image saved on 3 different hard drives.