Clonezilla

Clonezilla is an open source tool made along the lines of the popular Norton Ghost, it lets you create backup copies and restore your system in case you ever need to do so because of some issue.

You can do this by ripping the downloaded image directly onto a DVD, or through a USB device (for which a brief tutorial is included on the author's own website).

The application also supports unattended mode so you can 'skip’ almost all the steps by programming them using different commands.

Clonezilla is one of the most efficient ways of creating backup copies of your hard disks. Its interface is not very friendly, and may scare off the less brave, but once you get the hang of it, you'll find it to be full of interesting options.