This is not a paid endorsement. I would recommend this to any client, customer, or organization I worked for.
Check out "Paragon Backup and Restore"
I made a video series on YouTube how to do bare metal backups and restores (the OS itself is off).
It is solid software and works very well for drive imaging. It *does* have a software-in-Windows solution, but I prefer to do backups from boot because you can usually rest easy knowing that no files were locked or possibly skipped over. You know the recovery will go to specification.
Check here:
Link Removed
Everyone is going to have a different opinion, however, so choose carefully. I can tell you a lot of organizations still use Ghost, which is outlandish. This is far superior, and time and again has never failed me. Again, it can run live in Windows, but with any backup application, you are better off taking that extra time to do the backup from a boot disc. The boot disc and program-version are both included in the digital download. Good luck!
