I know that the Windows installation of PowerQuest Drive Image 4.0 may not be compatible with Win XP, but does anyone know whether there's any problem in using just a DOS bootup disk (Win98SE version) to start up the computer and run the Drive Image 4.0 DOS software to correctly image the drive C: NTFS partition?

Although Drive Image 4.0 is suppose to be suitable for up to Win 2000 (and it's NTFS file system I assume), my concern is that there may be something different about the Win XP NTFS file version that might cause the imaging to be faulty.

If Drive Image 4.0 under DOS will do a faithful image of the Win XP NTFS partition, will it be able to restore that NTFS partition without any damage to the two other hidden partition on my hard disk?

The other hidden partitions on the Dell factory configured hard disk is a 45 MB one labeled "DELLUTILITY" (I know what this is, can be accessed with F12 during initial bootup), and a 3 GB partition labeled "CP/M Concurrent ]" (maybe an image for recovering the hard disk factory configuration (will need to find out from Dell)

Any helpful advice with be appreciated, thanks.

XP NTFS is NTFS5 subtley different, therefore would recommend a good quality Windows base Drive Image/Backup software like TRUE IMAGE:
http://www.acronis.com

Unlike Ghost it does not use a hacked PCDOS.

the best & free knoppix imaging.
I tried do xp hd image (40 Gb NTFS formated) from Knoppix live cd without any problem.

or
The fastest is GHost 2003, but you have to pay for it