Partition Image is a Linux/UNIX partition imaging utility: it saves
partitions in the following file system formats to an image file:
- Ext2FS & Ext3FS (the Linux standard),
- FAT16/32 (DOS & Windows file systems),
- HFS (MacOS File System),
- JFS (Journalised File System, from IBM, used on AIX),
- NTFS (Windows NT File System),
- HPFS (IBM OS/2 File System),
- ReiserFS (a journalized and powerful file system),
- UFS (Unix File System),
- XFS (another journalized and efficient File System, from SGI, used on Irix),

Only used blocks are copied. The image file can be
compressed into the GZIP/BZIP2 formats to save disk space, and split
into multiple files to be copied onto floppies (ZIP for example),
or burned on a CD-R ...

This allows saving a full Linux/Windows system, with only one
operation. When problems (viruses, crash, error, ...) occur, you just have to
restore, and after several minutes, all your system is restored (boot,
files, ...), and fully working.

This is very useful when installing the same software on many
machines: just install one of them, create an image, and just restore
the image on all other machines. Then, after the first one, each
installation is automatically made, and only requires a few minutes.