[George]

You're right, cloning is making an exact working copy of your main hd.

Let's say you have cloned your c: to d:

C: takes a dump. You're in the middle of a show. You can switch to D: immediately, and continue on. Later you can clone d: to c: to do a restoration. You must use two drived with cloning...a USB drive for laptops, either type for desktops.

Same scenario with an image file:

Forget switching drives immediatly and carrying on. You must use a bootable disc to open the image file to restore the system.

Imaging create a file with your hard drive info compressed in that file. This image file is not fully operational, and if needed for restoration, must be activated with a bootable disc which you create prior to creating the image file. The image file can reside on either another drive, or the same drive..Personally I think it's playing Russian Roulette to have it reside on the same drive. If the drive fails mechanically, you're up a creek.

Once again it's a matter of choices. I prefer the complete security offered by cloning that imaging just cannot compete with.....IMHO

Only disadvantage I see to cloning is, in that it is an exact copy, it requires the same amount of room as the primary data. No problem if you use two identical size drives, or a larger drive for the backup.

Imaging obviously was the way to go a few years back, when drives were expensive, and USB wasn't around... but now???

From what I've read on the forums, either Acronis or Norton Ghost will do either process.

I hope I haven't skewed any facts in either direction.