making image backup of hard drive to DVD

[pokerswami]

From a computer illiterate (mostly):
I realize this question reveals my ignorance, but I need to learn the info. somehow.

On my 7 month old Windows XP machine I cannot find any instructions, using the Start > Help and Support > search feature or index, to use a Windows provided backup feature to make an image copy of my hard drive to my DVD burner. There is some info. on using System Configuration Utility. There are several references to users making backups but nothing on how to do it.

Is there no Windows provided backup feature? Do I need a 3rd party utility?

I have made copies of folders to DVD using the copy command, but I want to backup the whole drive, including everything on there so it could be restored from the DVD's if need be.

Oh yeah, what would I do if I needed to restore from these DVD's? (It would definitely take more than one - they only hold 4.7GB each.)

Thanks for your help.