first this question is not a dupe of:
https://superuser.com/questions/7739/windows-backup-by-imaging
I've used Norton Ghost extensively in the past (actually I was already using Ghost before Norton bought it) and one of the thing I liked is that it could compress the Windows partition so you could take relatively small snapshots/images of Windows systems.
I did a lot of imaging in the Windows 95/98/ME, XP and 2000 days.. But nowadays I tend to only run Windows in VMs (mostly under KVM). These virtual Windows, I've got no problem imaging and then duping/deleting/editing/etc. those images.
But my need now is different and here's the question for real superusers: I want to image and compress, from a Linux boot CD, a Windows NTFS partition of a Windows computer.
I don't mind creating myself the Linux boot CD with whatever application is needed... But which application would that be and how would I use it?