[CentOS] The equivalent of Ghosting the system

If I were to lose my main hard drive, I would like to have the 
opportunity to do the same as I can do using Windows: restore from my 
USB and have a working system.

If I were to rsync everything on the main drive (excluding the backup 
drive, of course and a few other directories) to my USB drive, could I 
restore using some CD based version of Linux e.g. Knoppix?

Todd

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