if it was possible to copy everything exactly as is from on drive to another including the O/S without any damage dont to the O/S
and if so would
copy c:\* e:\
work? or something like that

With Northon Gost, you'll be happy.
In Win98, it is possible, but you must exclude win386.swp

is it possible with xp?

Jupp,

ghost will copy nearly all FS Types, including NTFS, FAT16/32 regarldess of OS running...u usally boot up from some floppy Disks, CDROMs starting Ghost or whatever which copies sector wise to a other drive (include fragmention and temp files and all trash , viruses,trojans and dialers *g*)

Ray

holy crap
at outpost.com you can get it for 69.99
but it has a rebater of 70.00 so excluding tax yur getting paid a penny to take it off there hand!!