DriveImage XML – Norton Ghost Lite for free

Hot Image Your PC’s Hard Drive with DriveImage XML – lifehacker

You don’t need a complicated boot CD or expensive software to create a restorable system disk image for your PC: free utility DriveImage XML can save a full, working snapshot of your Windows hard drive while you work on it. When your PC crashes and burns or just slows down over time, the best insurance you can have is a mirror image of your operating system, complete with drivers, user settings, software applications, and documents in one place. A while back we covered how to partition and image your Windows hard drive using the Linux-based System Recovery Boot CD, a process that involves command line work, disk-burning, rebooting, and video driver wrangling.

Also DriveImage XML works great on a live cd like BartPE to preform a restore or backup.