Install 2 copies of XP......

I used PowerQuest's Drive Image (DI 7, most recently, which has been marketed as Ghost 2003 since Symantec bought PowerQuest 18 months ago) for several years, but switched to Acronis TrueImage 8 only a week ago. I wanted to be able to backup incrementally, a feature that DI 7 lacked, but that is available in both Ghost 9 and TI 8.

I admit to a long-standing antipathy against Symantec products, but Ghost has a good reputation. I have no experience with Ghost 9 but, unless Symantec has changed things, it requires the installation of M$'s .NET program (DI 7 did). Acronis TI doesn't.

DI (Ghost 9, too?) used its own internal Explorer-like window to view its archived files. Instead, Acronis TI assigns drive letters to archived drives, which are then accessible like normal drives in Explorer, even across a network. I find that feature to be a particular advantage.

Note that Symantec's list price for the downloadable version of Ghost is $69.95, while Acronis charges $49.99 for TI (and, you can try it free). Both programs can be found online (with CD) for under $35.

 

Yes, installing on a 2nd drive is the best way to do it, getting the most out of it as a backup - if one of the drives "heads south ", still have another working installation.

Carrying this idea of backups further, take advantage of the 2 HD's, do reciprical backups of user data and - if you're going to use drive imaging, store it on the other HD. Ideally, each drive should have 2 partitions - one for the OS and another for data storage. When I do imaging, I image each OS partition (do it from the other OS) and do normal (non-imaged) data backups for user data.

And adding my voice in strongly recommending use of drive imaging, couldn't live without it

Regards - Charles