Question

I am of course talking about full "system image" backups, similar to the old Norton Ghost. Should I look at other options? There are quite a few paid and free choices, but Clonezilla looks the best based on their own website.

Answer 1

while "the old Norton Ghost" is still my tool of choice, Clonezilla backups are just as reliable as any other drive image.

if you're still looking for alternatives, check Drive SnapShot or if you prefer 'free' then there is Drive Image XML. while DIXML isn't as fast as the other programs you can get a BartPE plugin from their website, which makes it an attractive choice

Answer 2

this program is also free:

EASEUS Disk Copy is a potent freeware providing sector-by-sector disk/partition clone regardless of your operating system, file systems and partition scheme by creating a bootable CD. The sector-by-sector method assures you a copy 100% identical to the original. Disk Copy can be used for copy, cloning, or upgrading your original small hard drive to a new larger drive. Simply speaking, it can copy anything from the old hard drive including the deleted, lost files and inaccessible data. So, the freeware is a perfect tool for Data Recovery Wizard to recover files from a backup disk.