Hot to make a Backup copy Of Harddrive

Hey guys just got my computer back from shop after numerous virus problems. I was wondering how to create a back up copy of the computer so i can restore it to the state that it is in now ?
Im using windows Xp home edition

Do you mean you want to make a System Restore Point? So say if you mess up your Computer again, you can restore it back to the point it is at now? (fixed)

Then;

Control Panel
->
Performance and Maintenance
->
On the left navigational bar underneath the "See Also", should say 'File Types', then below that 'System Restore', click System Restore, check it on "Create a restore point", then it's pretty much straight forward and it'll do the rest itself.

-- If you do mess it up again, and you want to restore, do the same thing above ^^ But when you click 'System Restore', just go on the "Restore my computer to an earlier time" option.

OK th alot for that Josh taht really helped and ive mahanged to do it now cheers ;D

You could also try programs like Norton/Symantec Ghost or Acronis TrueImage.

These make "snapshots" i.e. images of your hard drive, which you can then save on another partition, or back up to DVD/CDs, and then restore those "snapshots" at a later time.

I used to use Ghost (older version) but it ended up corrupting an image and I had to reformat/reinstall everything. Since then I moved over to TrueImage and it has never given me any trouble at all, works great.