What is the crowd's opinion of Redo Rescue?

From 3.5 billion comments

Yeah, it boots from start up (select device from bios, or f12, will give you a device menu to boot from). You need another program to make a bootable usb drive. It’s all explained here. I hope this solves your problem

In case of firmware be mega careful and paranoid. Read everything 2 times make sure the model and hardware version fits and backup with redo rescue (another Linux/Free software which also backs up Windows) http://redorescue.com/ It would take minutes to backup such a fast disk like yours,never trust to luck. On the other hand, manufacturers rarely update firmware unless there's a huge bug/performance issue so you better update if found.

There is Clonezilla, as some metnioned already. My personal fav is Redo Rescue. Imho it is easier to use and until now I had no errors with it (while with Clonezilla the backup was corrupted once - when I checked it)

You will need to get a USB and format it as a Linux boot USB. I recommend Redo Rescue for your purposes. After you get it set up and boot from it, you will back up any files you deem important to the USB.

After you have backed up your files, you will need another USB stick (or a place to temporarily store your backed up files) to reinstall Windows.