I select the hard drive I want to image. Obviously you have to select the external to back it up to and name the file. I use Automatic for size and Normal for compression. I do not enter a password on the password screen. I think that is about it. I have 8.0 at work and 10.0 at home. I heard that 11.0 is out, but I have not upgraded. My backup drive at home is a usb drive and I have 2 external firewire drives and an external usb drive at work. It has never taken over 30 to 40 minutes to image one of my hard drives. I also ensure that I make a bootable cd for each machine backed up. I make sure the external drive is powered up so that it is recognized. When creating the bootable cd I select the full program (I think that is the option). I hope all goes well with your image. I can tell you that I have restored several of my machines from their images when users installed software that caused issues. I have a tendancy to research before getting software and found some good write ups on Acronis. Norton Ghost also had good write ups. Its all good. have a blessed weekend and good luck.