Win32 Disk Imager
A program for saving drive images, and allowing you to restore from them
Maybe you have been in the position where your machine just hangs, maybe on a blue screen, or maybe just enters a hard freeze worse than the polar vortex. You reboot, restart, hold down F8, the whole nine yards, but nothing seems to break the spell. In these cases, you may wish you had employed Win32 Disk Imager (for Windows). If you had not done so, it would be too late. So I urge you, dear reader, to download this software, stick a removable flash drive onto your system (the software will not work with CDs or DVDs), and use Win32 Disk Imager (for Windows) to back up your hard disk (from which your system boots) onto that removable media. (Once you do that, you should run an incremental backup onto the same disk in order to make your fail-safe backup as current as possible.)
The program is open-source so you are not beholden to a for-profit company.
Win32 Disk Imager (for Windows) may not work for USB-connected removable drives (the README is ambivalent on this point).
PROS
Allows for image verification after writing.
Supports numerous file formats for disk imaging.
CONS
Limited format support, primarily supports IMG and ISO files.
Lacks a comprehensive user interface making it less intuitive.
