Create a new partition on your external drive then you can transfer all you you require by whatever chosen means without it interfering with your existing stuff.

Another suggestion, use "XX Clone" free to download, just google it. This will give you the option of making the target i.e. the disc you are sending it to bootable. Very easy to use but spend a few minutes reading the on screen instructions and go to "cool tools" and check the appropriate boxes.

Yeah...Teracopy is simply a replacement for the normal Windows File Copying which tends to trip over itself.

If you have a dying hard drive the most important thing is to get your files off it and on to another one as quickly as possible. Then and only then can you mess about with cloning. If the cloning operation goes wrong or it puts undue pressure onto an already on it's last legs hard drive then you stand to lose everything. If you get your important stuff copied over onto another drive and then try cloning you have nothing to lose.

If you only have one hard drive to copy to then do what was suggested earlier in this thread. Connect that hard drive to your PC, partition it so the partition is big enough to hold your files, copy over your files to said partition and then either clone to the remaining partition or install a new copy of Windows to it.

Then buy another external drive and copy all your files to it as well. And yes I am a little anal about backups. Comes from experience!

Provided you are extremely careful about which partition you either clone to or install on you shouldn't have any trouble.

For partitioning you can try Partition Magic or install Parted to a USB stick and boot from it. Do a google search for these programs.

Do a full backup using Acronis or clone it with XX or use both if you want belt and braces. I don't think you will have any problems retrieving your programmes.