Newbie Question re External Firewire Drive

Hi,

I have a Sony Vaio Laptop with an aftermarket 80g hd. Unfortunately the HD is partitioned with a 60 gig C:drive and a 20 gig D:drive (don't ask why.)
I also have an external "Simpledrive" 250 gig firewire F:drive.

I have Windows XP, and numerous installed applications and audio and video data on the C:drive to the tune of about 35 (out of 60) gigs.

I am looking for a program (hopefully Acronis True Image ) that will let me backup an image of my C drive into a folder on the external firewire F drive.
I want insurance against a catastrophic failure of the C drive. If that C drive ever fails, I want to be able to easily restore Windows XP and all those installed apps, from the external firewire F:drive back onto the C: drive and be up and running with a minimum amount of time and anxiety.

I own "Backup Now!" but their support tells me that "Backup Now!" will not restore from an external firewire or USB drive because DOS won't recognize firewire or USB and their restores require DOS mode. They only support restores from CD or DVD. (My laptop doesn't have a DVD burner and I don't really want to be swapping over 30 CD's to do a backup or a restore!)

Will Acronis True Image 8 do what I need? Is it reliable?

Thanks.