We then took this 1 step further and added a recovery partition to the computers drive too so that we can image the networked partiition to the recovery partition and then the whole computer is self contained, no need for portable hdd's or server storage. Once this was done we then added the recovery to the grub list, locked the grub list down so only admins had access to view/login and aye presto, a completely free and self contained recovery system on each machine.
Within the kbuntuo partition then we mounted our manufactured recovery into the linux partition. So we basically partioned our drive on the computers to contain our windows network as the main partition and then installed kbuntuo on to a secondary partition. I think we're quite simular in network requirements, we have around the same amount of computers and we too have a limited budget but what we endded up doing was we looked in to acronis, this software was really good but with the cost of it we thought there must be better ways to reduce the cost, so what we did was looked in to acronis worked, basically "using" their techonolgy and then manufacture our own recovery system as acronis is based on linux.
I'd recommend Google for learning how to use it, its all there on the web, I also recommend although this site mainly speaks of a unattended CD installs, it is really handy and most of it applies to RIS/WDS. Another good thing is that it is possible to have 1 "image" although it isnt really an image, its just an XP cd copied to your server, with an anwser file added in for automation. One of the best things about RIS/WDS is that its free and that is one price schools love! It does take a while to learn and even longer to master (and if you're thinking of deploying vista, you may as well skip this, and google WDS and MDT2008). We work for the Worcestershire County Council by the way, hence so many schools. We have found this most successful, as between us we maintain 18 Schools, but our other colleagues will be getting it soon in their schools, bringing the total up to about 140ish.
A colleague and I have been using Remote Installation Service or RIS (although if you're running Server 2003 SP2, it will now be Windows Deployment Service Legacy mode or WDS).
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