Micro 2000 Tech Tips - Building your image

Micro 2000 Tech Tips - Building your image: "Building Your Image
Today's tip comes to you courtesy of one of our readers, Mike. He wrote in asking us to talk about how to use Ghost Imaging with an external USB device. Thanks for the request and we hope this helps!
Why Create An Image?
An image is a compressed file that contains a complete copy of your hard drive including operating system, applications, and data files. These days, it�s become a necessity to religiously create a back-up of not only your data, but your entire hard drive as well. Why would you need to do this?
The answer is two fold. One, there will come a time when something goes wrong with your PC and you will need to restore your system back to a point where it was working properly. While your OS (Operating System) features different ways to restore your system �to the last known good point�, like a restore point built into XP, in many cases a simple restore is not enough. Two, you may need to upgrade to a bigger hard drive or replace a drive that's dying.
In either case, an image file comes in quite handy for restoring your system.
What To Use
One of the most common utility programs used to do this is Norton Ghost. Symantec's Norton Ghost is currently on version 9.0 (or 2003), upgraded from version 2002, and incorporates expanded capabilities for handling a number of scenarios. The program can send drive images across a network or copy images to an external drive using a parallel or USB cable. The latest version also allows you to burn images to CD-R or CD-RW discs.
The program also offers a wide range of compression and security settings, including an option that permits images to be cloned only to machines whose BIOS includes a specified text string, such as a product name.
Getting Started
To build an image using an extern"