Is there a program I can use to make a copy of the hard drive without booting into windows and burning the image to dvd?
A program that will install on RAM and run to do the backup would work. Is there a program that will run on the windows environment without installing to do the backup? The problem I am trying to get around is I do not have admin rights and want to format the hard drive, but in the future I want to restore it to the original state. Any ideas?
Acronis trueimage boot disk will do it. if you don't have admin right should you even be touching the machine without permission ?
Probably not, but that is the whole reason for looking for alternative ways to backup the hard drive. Then I can install my own version of windows and then in the future restore the current operating system. Don't try to play good cop now, especially on these forums. Give me ideas, and I will be greatly appreciative.
It's not a case of good cop, what will happen if restore fails it can happen i,e, duff DVD and you have scrubbed the hard drive. If you want more ideas try google.
Try boot disk of acronis, paragon, norton ghost, and paragon. Use them all the time to back up c: without installing. They are available on the net.
easus disk copy you probably don't need this anymore but easeus disc copy allows you to create a bootable cd where it will take you into its own os to do a bit by bit copy