This may be my first post, but I've had the best success using Clonezilla. I boot my system to the Clonezilla Live image on a USB thumb drive, then plug in my external USB drive. I use the easy to understand menus and in a few minutes I have an (much smaller) image of my internal hard disk sitting pretty on my External hard disk. I know I can restore the image to a larger drive, and I know to some extents on even a smaller drive than what was imaged, as it only snapshots used data blocks. Anyhow, I now have several images of this machine I'm typing on now, and in a few minutes I can boot that USB thumb drive, use the menus, and select the image that I'd like... presto chango I have any of the following: Suse Linux, XP Pro, Vista Ultimate 64... each one set up in what I call "pristine" condition. It makes toying with the same OS much more enjoyable.

Well, thought I would post a follow up as to what I did. I ended up ordering this
Newegg.com - INOi HD363N-320 320GB 7200 RPM 8MB Cache Network Hard Drive with built-in FTP and SAMBA Servers - Retail and useing this software Download backup software trial of HDD ghosting, data backup and restore software for home and home office PCs and it seems to be working just fine. The software allows me to make a full backup and then either differentials or incrementals, runs on a very custom schedule.

Overall its a fine solution. Total cost with the drive and 2 lisences of the software, about $200ish.

wwood .. glad everything worked out for you!