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Good advise for a backup and all software is reliable and for free:

Use a Linux Live CD/DVD/USB. Get a 2nd harddisk and boot it. Linux comes with a program called Disk Dupe (dd). Read the manpages and clone your primary disk.
An alternative is clonezilla, you can get it at http://clonezilla.org" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;