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Thanks for all your help mmalves, I must say I do like your avatar I find it rather hypnotic.

Cheers for the reply. Do you think that using the driveimagexml software is a sensible way to back up my system? It seems like it would do the job. Thanks again for taking the time to help me.

I'm planning to reformat my hard drive, reinstall windows and I would like to backup the brand new installation when I'm done. I've pasted this from an article from pc pro: "56. Make a disk image backup Sometimes when things go really wrong, there's no option but to reinstall Windows from scratch, but forward planning will help. Set up your PC with Windows and any commonly used applications, and make an image of your hard disk. This allows you to return to a pristine state with minimum fuss, by ghosting it to your hard disk. If you have Vista Ultimate, Business or Enterprise, you can use the included Complete PC Backup, but there's lots of freeware that can do it, too. Try ImgBurn - included on our cover disc." It can also be viewed at: http://www.pcpro.co.uk/features/176595/gur...atus/page2.html What exactly is ghosting? Could anyone help me acheive this, I've looked through the faqs and the support pages but I cant really find a discription of the process. When I try to use the read or write functions, I am only allowed to read or write folders, but not the entire hard disk. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks to anybody who can help.