I have no idea if this is the smartest/safest way to do this and I’d recommend getting Norton Ghost or something similar if you don’t feel confident with any of the processes in here. Google didn’t turn up any really handy answers for how to make a system restore disk from a hidden partition or an entire install (especially onto a USB hard drive) using free software so I thought I’d document what I ended up coming with. I realize there’s a hidden partition on the hard drive but I don’t really like trusting a single hard drive. Anyway, it doesn’t come with a system restore or Windows disk. The only major drawback is the tiny mousepad. I’ll probably do a more in depth review once we’ve used it a bit but it certainly is tiny and handy. We’re pretty happy with it so far (except we’ll be exchanging it for a new one since the ‘p’ key on this one only works half the time). We just picked up a little Acer Aspire One netbook.
