I use AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard...works flawlessly...and it's FREE
 
I've cloned MANY drives with it, OS and all, and works great for me...
I just recently built my new rig (see specs in sig) and cloned my entire hard drive with Win 8.1
on it and worked flawlessly...

http://www.aomeitech.com/aomei-partition-assistant.html

The one included in W7 and up works fine.

I use Acronis, it seems to work but fortunately I have never needed to recover data. USB 3 helps a lot on big backups to a external drive. Backups using USB 2 takes a aweful long time.

I have never been a fan of backup imaging due to the time involved and excessive reading/writing. I would end up reinstalling software anyway. But for data files I use xcopy and robocopy which can be configured to simply update files which have been modified since last use. Very quick and dirty and they are included in Windows. I posted a fairly detailed how to on that about a year ago but am on my cell ATM, but is in this thread.

http://forum.cakewalk.com...12491&fp=3&p=3

mettelus
I have never been a fan of backup imaging due to the time involved and excessive reading/writing. I would end up reinstalling software anyway. But for data files I use xcopy and robocopy which can be configured to simply update files which have been modified since last use. Very quick and dirty and they are included in Windows. I posted a fairly detailed how to on that about a year ago but am on my cell ATM, but is in this thread.

http://forum.cakewalk.com...12491&fp=3&p=3

The advantage of an approach like Acronis is that you don't have to think about any of that stuff when restoring.  You click one or two buttons and it restores elegantly.  Simple to do which is a good thing when presented with a complex challenge of "something is wrong somewhere in the system". 

I use Acronis. Backup software often seems like a waste of money....... until you need it for real of course, then it seems like the bargain of a lifetime. 

you guys rule - thanks