I am sure you thought of something like Norton Ghost... Ghost 2001 allows you to save to a hard drive, CD-RW or network. It's fast and dependable. Depending on the size of your hard drive, it can take from 6 to 20 minutes (figure around 150-200mb per minute), it will even allow you to span.
Another similar product is Drive Image Pro 4.0, from the folks at Powerquest.