Free Disaster Recovery Software?

I’m in need of a free (and reliable) application capable of not only backing my computer up at designated times of the day but that is also capable of providing a single CD or DVD restore approach for everything as if I were installing Windows from the ground, up… I’ve used that “Acronis” program before and I’m thinking that might be what I use now, but do any of you have any suggestions? Have any of you used “Toucan?”

For example, let’s say my computer gets a virus–which it did a few weeks ago, and luckily, I was able to remove it after some effort–and I need to restore my computer from a previous state before contracting it… I’d like to simply pop in a disc, reboot, and then everything gets reformatted to the respective version the disc has on it… This way, I could burn the bi-weekly or daily discs as needed and always be prepared! …I hate viruses!

So that said, are there any programs out there that can do exactly what I’m talking about above?

(Obviously, I know nothing about backup software, so any insight into all this is very appreciated.)

I use norton ghost and clonezilla for backing up disk partitions (with OS). I put the backups on a seperate partition and restore from there when needed. They might have support for backing up to CD/DVD.

I’d use Ghost if it was free, but I’ll check out Clonezilla… Thanks!

Acronis True Image is a pretty good option for single CD/DVD restoration. It’s usually available for anywhere between $25 and $50, depending upon when it goes on sale or when it has a rebate with it.