I am using win xp pro and the Primary Drive I am using is 80 GB and I want to replace it with a bigger one.

Now I have a lot of Graphic Programs and Animation Programs and Video and Audio Programs installed and all of there settings are just right.

Can I use win xp pro backup to make a backup of my whole hard drive and then burn the file to my Black CD or DVD?

Then when I have winxp installed on the new hard drive just IMPORT the file back??

will this work or is there a diferant WAY I should be doing this?
I don't want to buy a Backup program just to do something I chould do with a program that win xp has.
Please he RobertYou could use a program like Norton Ghost (or similar), then use something like Partition Magic to resize the partition on the new harddrive to it's FULL capacity. (Ghost will create another 80-gig partition on the new drive.)Or you can hook up the new drive as a slave...use the diagnostics from the "new" HDD manuf. site and "clone" your drive to the new one...
Then power down...dis-connect your old drive completely and set up the new drive as master. When you power up everything should be there... no partitioning is needed. Then after checking things out MAKING sure all is good you can then hook up the old drive as a slave ...format it and use it for storage.