how to create Virtual or Ghost Partition

[Geolas]

Hi, new to this community.I am not really sure if this was the right place, because this community seem to be for developers really.

Well my question is, as the topic states, how to create a virtual or ghost partition?

I think virtual might be the wrong term for it, as when i try to google it, it comes with creating a drive letter to go to a folder in your current drive. Which wasn't exactly what i was looking for.

And when try to search for "ghost partition" or "ghost drive" i get how-to about Norton Ghost.

Of course i could be just searching for an entirely wrong thing as well, so i'll explain what my needs are.

The purpose of the "ghost" partition, is to create a self restore drive really. I was thinking of doing a clean install of windows and the programs i normally use. Then maybe use a program to copy my HD to another drive, well in this case, to another partition. Then i would like that partition to be invisible. So any viruses wouldn't damage it, and if stuff happens, i would just format the partition and then run the program to copy the HD again.

Kinda like how new store bought PC aren't coming out with restore disk, and are using a "ghost" partition as a restore disk. I am sure it is a partition, cause i actually formated a PC with their restore feature on a ghost partition without realizing it.

I believe Norton Ghost can do this, but i don't want to buy Norton Ghost.

[Stang02GT]

http://www.directron.com/ghosting.html

[Geolas]

Thanks for the link. But that article is quite old. posted in 2005.

And most of those specs from that page is around win98/XP. I am actually going to use this for Vista. Most likely 64 bit, but it would be great to have compatibility with both x86 and x64 versions, because i may be dual booting both versions, just because there are so many "mods" that are made by other users in only x86.