The idea is based on the first drive in your system storing only installed programs and their settings, when the second one stores all of your documents. If you set up your PC this way, the backup creation/restoration process is very easy and will take minutes.

As in the previous article on this topic, I recommend Acronis software. I found the Trueimage Workstation very powerful as it is able to back up the entire partition (including the system partition) to a single file on the fly, even without having to restart the computer. The user interface is friendly and self-explanatory.

Use “Backup” and “Recovery” wizards accessible from the main panel. It’s best when you save the image to another physical drive, e.g. to an external USB 2.0 device.