Stump Macasaurus – How do I back up a whole drive?

Reader 'OldCoot' asks:

Is there a way for a person to make a full back up of everything on a MacBook Pro to a USB/Firewire HD from Tiger without having to buy third party software?

Why yes, yes there is! And it's so simple you will possibly do that wacky 'I could have had a V8' slap in the forehead after you read this.

Boot your computer using your OSX install disc. Hold down 'C' after the chime to boot to the disc.
When the Installer begins, ignore it, and instead choose 'Tools/Disk Utility'
When Disk Utility starts, select your hard drive (as seen here)
Next, click the 'File' menu, and choose 'New/Create disk image from (disk name)
In the next dialog, do the following:
Name the file
Select a 'save' location
Choose the type of file to save. Compressed saves space and is recommended
The end result will be a DMG file that you can open up just like any other disk image.