Windows 7: backup entire hard drive including partitions

i just bought a new computer running windows 7 home edition. my question is, can windows 7 make an entire image of my hard drive including (and this important) the recovery partition? If It can can anyone please tell me how. i need to have a complete backup of my hard drive in case of hard drive failure. Your help is greatly appreaciated.
elcoppo

A better backup program than Windows backup is Macrium Reflect FREE Edition - Information and download It backups whole partitions. You just need to tell it which ones to backup and on what schedule and it does the rest. I have restored my partitions several times and have never had a problem. A large portion of the members here use Macrium. You need a large HDD for the backups as it makes an image of all of your partition on each backup, not incrementals unless you use the pay version of it. I bought a 500 GB drive that I use for only backups and delete the older ones every few weeks. I think you will like it.