The step to Linux from my trusted Windows XP comes with a couple of things that are very different, I am learning though!
Over the years I've been "playing" with several distro's of Linux but never came to a point where I would consider to switch to Linux as my main OS. The "hassle" of installing and compiling via terminal and the problems with drivers and other seemingly simple things made me give up after a while.

My current Linux distro PCLinuxOS changed that, I am seriously considering to make the switch.
From the first install, without any modifications, it worked like a charm and did what I want an OS to do: run my computer. It feels very stable and mature. For the small things that do not work properly (like cue-sheets) I am convinced I will find a solution.

At this moment I am exploring the perfect solution for my backup needs, before switching to Linux as my default OS I need to get this working.
I need a program similar to Norton Ghost to make an image of my bootpartition so that, in case of a systemcrash, I will be up and running in no-time. I found that most "ghost" programs have no support for EXT4. Norton does support EXT3 so I took the (for me) simple way out and installed Linux on EXT3. EXT4 is faster but as I do not work with time consuming calculations, games or graphically demanding programs I hope I will not notice the difference.
Next step is to find out if the image handles Grub properly.
In order to make the switch thát is the final hurdle. If Norton will not work properly then Partimage is my next choice.

Does any of you have any helpful ideas on that subject?

The opensource equivalent of Ghost: http://www.clonezilla.org/ (with support for ext4, which I suspect Ghost does too even if it's not spelled out).

Works great in my experience.

Tried Clonezilla but it messed up my GRUB and I could not get it fixed. I found some instructions on the web to solve the problem but no luck, ended up with a "grub error 15". I tried both EXT3 and EXT4, both with the same result.
Next steps: Ghost for Linux and Partimage, I'll see what they do better.

I'll grab a bite to eat first and try again later.

why not just use the dd command just look it up it will make a perfect harddrive image at the raw data level and can restore it with the same command

From what I understand the dd command makes an image in the same size as the original partition, it would be too big for me.
Also, seems to be very user unfriendly?

I just tried Clonezilla again and for some reason it works now?? I will try to make more images and see if it stays a stable solution.