Free Disk Imaging Tools

Disk imaging has become much more mainstream in the past few years. Especially for home users, this very useful data backup and transfer method can prove to be a life saver when recovering from a system failure, or moving an entire system worth of software.

Disk imaging is the process of taking an entire hard drive partition, taking a snap shot of the information on that partition, and storing the data in a continuous file. This file can be burnt to a CD for backup purposes, transferred over a network for installation elsewhere, or restored locally on another hard drive. Also, these images can be compressed, allowing for them to be more easily stored in bulk, and reducing the network transfer time. Disk imaging is more useful than a traditional backup method because it takes a snapshot of the entire hard drive partition. This includes all installed applications, operating system files, personal files, and configurations.

While Disk Imaging tools are very useful, they have a few small risks:

1. Not all disk imaging tools create images with the same file extensions. Make sure that if you are moving the image to another computer, that computer can use that image type.
2. Pay special attention to which configurations are being added to the images. In some cases, boot sectors may be added, which could cause errors if the image is used in another system.
3. Not all image types can be burnt to a CD. If this is a requirement, please be sure to check for this functionality in your disk imaging software.

You can get any or all of the free Disk Imaging tools here

NOTE 1: Most free disk imaging products are not as comprehensive as you may need. To get the full range of disk imaging protection, you may need to buy a full featured commercial disk imaging product.