Do note Rhenerie, that you'll have to format your system first, install all the basic programs and drivers and then install ghost to make it, since this is how it'll make the image. You'd then be able to go back to this at any time
Yep, just install all the drivers and simple programs you want, buy Norton Ghost (or System Works which contains an Antivirus, Hard drive tools, and Ghost) and then run it ot start the process
What would you be using as the source of the image file, DVD's? External Drive?
You could use any, though it would be more suitable to store onto DVD if you have a DVD burner as these can hold 4.7GB of data each, compared with about 730-800MB on a standard CD-R.
With it being a clean install with only a few programs on it, I would expect it only to take up 1-2 DVD's to make the whole image.
With CD-R's, you'd be expected to have about 8 for the same job
You'd then when running the program again (it'd boot up in dos), is Format (I think it has an option, though if not, you could use a boot up disc to do this) and then insert the DVD's one by one, letting it copy the data off each first and uncompressing them back to files
Your job would then be done, and it'd restart with your clean system fully loaded.