tinjaw: volume shadow copy, innit?
A nifty thing with Acronis is that the (linux-based, but actually well-working
) "recovery CD" or "safe zone" pre-boot environment can access SMB/CIFS (aka windows shares), so you can back up stuff to a server on the lan - and restore from it, even if the windows install is completely b0rk.
Ghost was nice, but I'm done with it since symantec took over. The king is dead, long live the king etc.