Best Cloning software for windows 7 pro

my ultimate goal was to clone my laptop and PC drives so if the "C" drive in each fail, I can just replace the drive with the backup clone. Let me say that before I switched to Win 7 Pro I was running XP home and pro with Acronis and had no issues. Since I have changed to Win 7, which btw, I am learning more and more to like, I never had any issues with anything. My reason for clone with an immediate internal drive replacement is, I do massive amounts of payroll for outdoor concerts and for a hard drive to fail on location, is a disaster! So, thru a very knowledgeable friend of mine, I back up my laptop at the beginning of the outdoor concert season and always have a complete backup to the OS to go back to. I also back up via a jump drive, the daily payroll and leave the jump drive on location when I take my laptop home with me for the nite. I backup my PC at home, for the same reason as I send my daily xls spread sheets to myself. I had a drive down on me once about 10 years ago and I never looked back since. I learned my lesson one time. A complete clone for me worked great on both of my XP machines and though that it would be the same for Win 7. The current version of Acronis for Win 7 suxs and had nothing but issues so I deleted it and went to EaseUS which I found out later, to obtain tech support it takes a day to send an email then receive a response. No phone number or LIVE CHAT. If there is one thing I have learned again, don't assume that a 3rd party software company will be easy to contact. Any comments will be appreciated. I have already lost about $140.00 on Acronis for 2 machines and probably will be out the money I spent for EaseUS as well once I decide my course of action which is why I am appealing to the Experts to help resolve for me.  Is Emily Jane still involved in EE. She resolved issues for me years ago and haven't had any contact with her for a few years and hope she is doing well. If any of you kno her, give her my best!
BStoker1931

The drives are set up as "MBR"

Quick observation - you said "I also back up via a jump drive, the daily payroll and leave the jump drive on location when I take my laptop home with me for the nite."  I hope you (1) place it in a secure location and (2) encrypt the drive / use an encrypting drive.  If not and you lose it, you could be liable for a lawsuit if someone gets hold of that and it has thigns like social security numbers or similar personal financial information.  You'd probably be better off syncing the data with a service like OneDrive so it's copied safely as soon as it's changed.  Even then, I hope you're using Bitlocker on the laptop and any computer that contains a copy of the data.

Now, that said, for backup, have you tried the free, included Windows 7 Backup tool?  It creates a full image based backup of your computer to an external drive.

Alternatively, if this is for business, I would suggest using a Windows Home Server, SBS Essentials server, or Windows Storage server and utilizing the workstation backup feature to backup all your computers.  It does so automatically and can restore quickly to a new harddrive upon disk failure.  For ONE computer it's expensive... for a 5-10 it's not bad (10 is the limit of Home server, which should still be available).

I used ghost years ago and had no issues but was given a copy of Acronis way back when for XP. I have formatted the internal drive using the Thermaltake Blac X and ill try using Ease US when I get back to work as Windows was going threw a full format. I have no SS numbers just names and hours worked and totals. The HR part is handled by the payroll company. I just supply the hours worked and amounts but thanks you for your concern.  If I get thru this clone tonite when I get to work with a fully formatted drive ill post. Not letting Windows do its full formatting could of been the issue as I used the software as I remember to do the formatting. Long story which I hope will have a happy ending tonite and if not, ill uninstall EaseUS ans try Ghost again. I understand imaging with windows but wanted the idea of just replacing the internal drive with a cloned drive either on my laptop or PC. That's the way I did it before and was very comfortable with it. Illpost after I receive the results tonite after I try to clone again. thanks much!
BStoker1931

with the internal hard drive in the usb3 docking station (Blac X5) I was able to use the EaseUS software after 2 tries. First time it gave me an error message so I rebooted and its now at work cloning my C to G drive (G being a 750G internal hard drive which is used in the Blac X5 dock) to clone the laptops internal drive. It seems as if the deep formatting of the drive did the trick but I will still try the software on my pc with its back up drive. Hope this makes sense. My goal was to have an internal laptop hard spare cloned drive as well as my PC so if either failed all I need to do is install the cloned drive with the OS and all my files etc on the drive. Thanks for the suggestions and help and ill post if everything goes well with the PC clone. Im still waiting to hear from the software  company in China via email because that is the only was u can communicate with them, SO buyer be ware!!!!

BStoker1931

Why does it ask you for restart to clone the software? And why do you consider the money lost for Acronis or Easeus? They have money back guarantee dont they?
As mentioned - are you willing to use acronis or easeus only?

I am open to any suggestions for an easy piece of software to use. Its not worth my time that I will spend to try and get the money back. Ill just chalk it up to esperience. I just want an easy piece of software to use the will have free tech support either by phone or Live Chat with Remote access to my computer
BStoker1931
ps: I am open to any and all Expert suggestions!!!

thanks! will try this!
BStoker1931

didn't accept! was a typo

@BStoker1931:

I am confused by your last post above
<didn't accept! was a typo >

.. do you still need assistance or did you mean to accept and close this question?

sorry bout that! I accepted all the answers and would like the question closed!
BStoker1931