Backup for parent's pc

I'm putting a new hard disk in my dad's laptop and the old one will be used in an enclosure for regular backups. For data backup, MyDocuments, Pictures will be backed up online via Dropbox and Mozy (total size is not that big).

For the rest of the data and OS I would like something that will do -

- as soon as external disk is connected, do an image backup of OS, and file backup of data
- manage incrementals and delete old backups
- allow simple recovery using either boot disk or some program

The laptop can only have 1 disk otherwise I would have run SyncToy to mirror all data to 2nd disk.

I know many programs can do this, but I don't need advanced features such as multiple restore points, snapshots etc. It just needs to be simple enough so that he can do the restore himself if things go wrong, as long as he is in the habit of connecting the external drive daily.

 

I would take a look a http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.asp for imaging the entire drive and http://www.educ.umu.se/~cobian/cobianbackup.htm for data. Either one by itself would be sufficient, but I like to have 2 different backup formats.

 

This topic has been addressed many times on this forum. I would suggest that you do a search of the archives rather than hope folks will yet again post about the pros and cons of various programs. Then, once you have narrowed things down you can ask specific question about particular programs.