At the moment l have a (D) drive which is CD/DVD read only, an (E) drive which is CD/DVD read and write, and an external (F) drive which is for storage.
So if the hard drive (C) crashes, and there is no get out of jail free card, one would need a DISK to insert that boots and restores the system to how it was.
I know there are various progs. out there to backup the complete system, but the way l read it is that you need that backup programs software to restore the system.
As l have just a Windows XP Home Edition Upgrade disk, thought l'd stick with their own backup / restore FACILITY for now, but am finding it a bit difficult in shaking off the save to drive (A) function.
The normal route doesn't seem to be of help and if l go into advance mode, it shows drive (D) as just cd and drive (E) as just dvd ram. Any filename entered at this point just comes back with a message saying "ensure it's a valid path".
How then do l create a bootable disk or isn't this POSSIBLE with Windows Backup / Restore
Sorry, not being rude, but please don't tell me about other IMAGING programs at the moment (although l will probably ask about these later) as l'd like to try and sort this MS Backup / Restore facility out first.
Many thanks MS backup is more, or less worthless. Don't waste your time.Windows Backup won't really rise to this kind of challenge, Willy.  Despite your final request, I'm going to go ahead anyway and tell you about CloneZilla - which you should use to image your harddrive once fully installed, and Cobian Backup which you should use to backup your data subsequently.  ALWAYS keep a CloneZilla CD to hand!  Oo - and a GParted CD for that matter.And/or Macrium Reflect...also FREE.Thanks Rob and Patio.
Your advice is very much appreciated and l'll go and check these out.
Regards