Backing up -- Seriously

So I've been running my mac for a little while now, but my big question I'm running into is how can I back things up in case of an emergency? I'm getting into my curious mode and I want to break some things...

So how does this sound:

Get Mac Mini. Boot it up in firewire mode. Plug it into another machine and transfer all data to a DVD.

Now of course the downside to this is if the parittion is jacked up that doubtfully would be transferred over with the rest of the information... but! I bought my mac mini as an original and so i can simply place my original Os x cd's into the drive, restore the partition, and then copy over my backup files. I have bootcamp though, so that means the partition wouldnt' match and be potential problems.

So anyways, is there a clonign software (not this half-done backup prefs and data files only type back) so I can ensure I will be able to restore my mac mini to as it is right NOW?

Thanks, I am really enjoying this but I really want to install some different distros on my mac mini, I just don't know a good way to partition the drive and bootcamp doesn't like linux!

If you have two macs use the firewire method you mentioned but use Disk Utility on the other side to create an image of the Mac Partition. Them if the "S" hits "F" just use target disk mode again and use disk utility to restore the partition (image).

I bought a portable FW 300GB drive from Costco and use SuperDuper ---> http://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/SuperDuperDescription.html ...and it's bootable. This means holding down the option key at boot time allows you to boot from the back-up the you can dup it back to the harddrive.

Another vote for superduper!

Full backups are free, you'll have to buy it for smart backups though.