Assuming you have a hard drive to set aside for later, I use "Reflect" by Macrium. This was suggested by someone here on this forum. Great tool. And free! I currently use v6.3, but I think it's up to v7.1 now.

My desktop runs Win XP Pro, and I use Reflect's clone feature. In case my primary drive fails, all I have to do is make my secondary HD the primary, and "voila" - back in business.

It takes about 2 hrs+ to clone 300 MB, but well worth the time. I never tried it on Win 8, but the manual says "Win XP or later".

https://www.macrium.com/reflectfree

Hope it helps!



Edit: When I say "clone", I mean exact (byte-for-byte) copy of a hard drive, operating system, all files, etc.

But I have a question. Say you clone what is on a 300 GB HDD to a new 1 TB HDD. Is the remaining 700 GB still usable after that? Does it automatically get formatted as another partition? Thanks in advance.

But, first format the 1Tb drive before backing up the smaller drive. I format as "NTFS" file system on my primary, so I format my secondary as "NTFS" also. (Assuming a Windows OS)

The thing about cloning a primary to a secondary, is that whatever "new" files you have on the secondary get wiped out, since your are doing a byte-for-byte clone of the primary. Any new files should be on the primary first. The secondary gets "re-painted" during cloning.

No need to back it up as it would most likely not validate anyway. Win 8 validation is based on hardware in the machine if too much hardware changes the validation breaks. You might be able to call and get them to unlock it again but my experience with it has been less than satisfying.

Also you can download windows install disks for free. https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/15088/windows-create-installation-media

Add to that win 8 was never actually finished and there is no reason whatsoever to beat your head against the wall trying to back it up.

We don't throw away anything here until it's unusable and un-repurposable.

So even if you tried to call them and get them to validate it you would not be able to without the key.

Basically wipe the drive and forget it.

Should allow you to create a compressed version of the primary and boot partitions of the win8 drive. You could store this anywhere. You would also create a macrium boot disc. When time comes you would put your target hard drive in the machine and boot from the macrium disc to unpack the backup file . Probably easiest to have backup file on USB flash drive (don't use byte for byte backup because this would make a much larger file and is unnessesary.)
If you have an empty hard drive available you could test your backup before clearing the win8 drive.

They seem to have a very good knowledge base on their website. This is from a two second glance at their website but the knowledge base is extensive if you have time to browse and read through a few tutorials.

Basic backup: https://knowledgebase.macrium.com/display/KNOW7/Creating+a+backup+image+of+your+computer%2C+drive+or+partitions

Restore to different hardware (doesn't get into entering a key#): https://knowledgebase.macrium.com/display/KNOW7/Re-deploying+Windows+to+new+hardware+using+Macrium+ReDeploy

I've made compressed backups (compressed just means it saves only used areas of the partition and ignores free space. Uncompressed or byte by byte copies everything including empty space so the backup is exactly the same size as the partitions it is copying.) and restored them to an empty older small HD with success. Todo backup also worked but i believe they no longer offer a free Home version but a more limited free version and Macrium makes a slightly smaller/tighter backup file anyway.