Backup software

Ok,
I need some backup software that will make an exact disk copy. The problem is, programs like driveimage from powerquest don't read linux file formats (i think image 2002 reads ext2, but I use xfs). So, I need a program that can backup my hard drive no matter what file format it's in, I searched for some source code that would help and couldn't find anything there either. Any help is appreciated, thanks.

Have you tried Ghost? I don't know if it'll do Linux formats or not, but it's worth a shot.

they support ext2/3 ,
I need one that will do either byte by byte copies, or one that supports XFS

In Linux you can use the 'dd' command. This is an exact byte-for-byte copy though so it's going to take up a lot of space and a lot of time. The destination file will need to be as big, if not bigger, than the source.

It's really easy to use though. For example, say I have a Win XP installed on hda1, and wanted to make a copy to another drive for safe keepings (hda2) I'd do this:

"dd if=/dev/hda1 of=/dev/hda/winbackup"

to restore the EXACT duplicate in the future it would be the opposite:

"dd if=dev/hda/winbackup of=/dev/hda1"

this works very, very well but it is time consuming and space consuming. Though I suppose once you made the backup you could simply compress it, break it up to 700 MB chunks, and burn it to a CD :)

thanks a lot!
I figured there'd be something in linux, but I didn't dig very deep...hmm...now to download knopix and make a copy of the hard disk on my emergency system. Yea!