Hi, I was wondering if there's a easy way to make a full system backup. it would be best if it's on one of my extra HDD's (i have 2 extra 40GB HDD's sitting on top of my PC. i'm sure it wouldn't take more than 1 of them.) it also would be best if it could automatically update once in a while. and it would need to be bootable incase i need to restore it.

I am really new to linux, i have only been using it for about 4 days, but i have been able to get it to do almoast everything i want my PC to do (only have wireless LAN left), which is wonderful, but i don't ever want to have to set it up again ('cuz, being new to linux, it was a pain!).

i don't know if there are any programs that can set this all up for me. i used to use Norton Ghost in windows. but if there are i'd need them to be free or cheap, 'cuz i don't have a big budget right now.

any help with this would be highly appreciated. i don't fully understand how to do many things in linux yet, but i'm trying to make the switch from windows.

The equivalent of Symantec Norton Ghost is called partimage. It will make a full backup of a partition. You probably already have it installed but I would recommend booting a live CD/DVD and making the backup that way.

Your backup drive does not have to be bootable. You can boot a live CD/DVD to use partimage to restore the partimage backup file to bare metal. I did this recently so I know it works.

Thanks! i actually just found the guide section (first time on this site) and i'm downloading Clonezilla Live right now. if that doesn't work out i'll try out partimage.

Thanks again!
~Scott

:EDIT:
got it working with the SystemRescueCD. it's a bit easier for a noob like me, boots up to a command line where you type startx to start the GUI, then all i had to do is figure out how to mount my spare HDD using the terminal 'cuz it doesn't come with a file browser installed. didn't take too long, did it with:
mount -t ext3 /dev/hdb1 /mnt/mkdir/
then i just had to figure out how to use PartImage.

if anyone else wants to try out the SystemRescueCD, you can get a .iso to burn here:
http://www.sysresccd.org/Main_Page

Thanks again for the help!
~Scott