backup disc?

[juggalomike]

At the moment i have an alienware computer that came with a disc, that when used whipes my system completely and reinstalls to factory settings, when building your own computer is there any way to make a disc like this? would be nice to have one incase my new comp ever crashes

 

[cozumel]

Reformatting your disc and then Slipstreaming. Then re-loading all your programs back onto the system.

All your data would of course be on an external backup drive.

 

[Billb2]

Yes, just make a slipstreamed install.
nLite: http://www.nliteos.com/
There's also RAID1 disk arrays: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAID
There are less drastic measures like System Restore and Windows System Repair disks.
There's also good old backups and disk cloning.

It all kind of depends on where you want to go back to, and how much effort you are willing to put into it. And after all, a custom built computer, when you're done building, has no OS nor programs on it, so a reformat and reinstall of the OS could be looked as as doing what you want too.

 

[Pirotech]

Acronis True Image allows to backup data, create an image of hd and os.
http://www.acronis.com/homecom...ng/products/trueimage/

 

[jkresh]

True Image, or norton ghost are probably the simplest options, after you have your basic install setup the way you want just make an image, you can then restore to that point whenever you want.