How do I back up MY VISTA Installation....?

So I have a few things going on: [b]1. I DL'ed Zip Genius 6. and the Hard drive on my laptop is too big to compress and save. Yes I've tried to back up the drive and then compress....It didn't work. Am I doing some thing worng??? [b]2. I would like to back up my installation and I would like to do it for free, Is there a clone software that I could DL??? [b]3. Should I install Kubuntu 8.04-KDE 4 before I uninstall VISTA???? Thanx Guys.

1. Take your time (one or few DAYS) to read and understand all info on wikipedia, covering Hard Disks, partitioning, file systems, MBR and boot loaders. Also be aware that Vista is very sensitive to disk structure, i.e. if you create or modify some partitons, be sure to have a Live CD which can connect to internet for help or another computer. MS OSes have always been monopolicaly blind. 2. Since youre more experienced with windowze style now, i wont recommend you using LiveCDs, but instead search for "Hiren Boot CD" and burn it. There are admin tools like Ghost, which can quickly help you much. 3. You could try LiveCD, installing in a single file or running it in virtual machine. All three methods are non destructive. [Modified by: Lin on July 05, 2008 09:13 PM]