Never mind Acronis True Image - you can use the command line to work with disk images and backups, without any extra software.

Create a hard disk image:

dd if=/dev/hda1 of=/home/hda1.bin

Create a compressed disk image

dd if=/dev/hda1 | gzip > /home/hda1.bin.gz

Back up the MBR

dd if=/dev/hda of=/home/hda.boot.mbr bs=512 count=1

Restore MBR (from a Live CD)

dd if=/mnt/hda1/home/hda.boot.mbr of=/dev/hda bs=512 count=1

Backup a drive to another drive

dd if=/dev/hda of=/dev/hdb conv=noerror,sync bs=4k