Need commands to partition NTFS hard drive,make image of it

Hi. My purpose: I seek an exact, "insurance" procedure to protect my Windows-XP operating system and installed programs in the case of a potential hard-drive failure. I want to be able to back up the programs on my hard drive from an image that I make of it. I wish to partition a hard drive and have an image of my hard drive both on the new partition and small enough that I could write the image onto a couple of CDs (Compact Discs). I am using Windows XP Home Edition. I have only one physical hard drive in my computer which is now called the "C" drive. I have a Knoppix CD, an NTFS (New-Technology-File-System), "C" drive; a "D" drive for DVD-ROM/CD-ROM drive; an "E" drive occasionally appears when I have my external CD writer connected to my computer using a USB (Universal Serial Bus) cable. I defragmented my hard drive once and should defragment it once more just before and if I carry out a procedure recommended to me here. So let's assign the new partition to the letter "F" and have it contain the image of my current "C" drive. To reach these two goals please give me the exact commands to type in the window that I should be using when purely from my Knoppix CD I have Linux running. I think one of the programs I should be using is called partimage. I expect the Linux commands to contain the letter "F" for the partition I want to contain the image of the current "C" drive; the drive letter for the new partition is the thing I expected to find but missed seeing in one set of instructions I found for partitioning. I don't have much experience with either Unix or Linux. Thanks in advance for your help.