I have a 3 year macbook with Windows 7 installed as 40gb and OS X as 40gb (80gb HD). I want to remove OS X as Im at the limit of 40gb on Windows and I have not logged on to Mac OS X since installed Win7 (dont flame me).

So I want to delete OS X partition and expand my win partition to 80gb BUT I still would like to be able to regularly (once a week/month) backup my Windows 7 partition - its took a while to setup everything up right - not just docs and programs - so when the hard drive dies I want to be able to restore the partition and boot away, (the daily volatile bits I can pull down from dropbox and project from soure control). With Mac OS X I could use Winclone - and this worked flawless last time the HD failed with XP but with the absence of OS X I will need something else.

Im thinking can I use a Linux Live boot CD along with an external USB hard drive. Boot from CD and then dd? the partition to the USB?

What linux distro live CD should I use? I say dd as if I know what am taking about (I dont) is this the best way to backup a partition (when it will be restored to same hardware as bootable) ? What command?