hi I have a query. I have 20 IBM Same type pc's with Winxp pro sp2 with all our necessary softwares loaded. now if need to format and load any one pc, i need to either format it manually and load OS + all required softwares indidually one by one. or by making a ghost of another hard disk. for this i need to remove hard disk and run ghost. Instead is there any way to take a comple image of one fully loaded hard disk with all partitions, os & softwares in a Bootable CD and load it directly into that pc? What ever suggestion is helpful to learn more about it.

As far as imaging is concerened yes, it will work as long as the machines are EXACTLY the same right down to the minor details in the hardware configuration. However, I would question the licensing problems that you may run into with XP. I'm not sure what will happen here, but XP may refuse to run if registered to one machine and copied to another. I would get more info on this before trying.

No, you needn't format PC manually and load OS + all required software individually one by one. Here is good backup software, which I always use to create an image of my HDD for backup purpose. You can just create a bootable CD (it take not much space due to good compression), it will contain an exact image of you HDD with all partitions, OS & software. And restore it into another PC. It's the easiest and dependable backup software I've ever seen.

I think what he wanted was a Windows XP cd that has the software that is normally installed on the computer to be there automaticlly.. Yes there is a way... Without runing Imaging software.. It entails you to "rebuild" the XP cd.. You copy your XP cd and instert programs such as office, mailing, or any other programs on it so when you install the OS all that is installed for you.. Email me for instructions.. They are rather long and detailed.. I'll help out with it.. Junk Internet Explorer, Get Firefox! You'll be happy you did.