Windows 7: can Win7 back up a 2nd disk?

I searched back a few pages and didn't find a clear answer to this. The questions that seems to deal with the topic wandered off into target disk sizes or just offered a vague answer labeling Windows Backup as restrictive. I asked the question in another forum but the response is slow and I want to hurry and get an inituila backup.

I just converted from XP to 7 Home Premium 64bit and I'm frustrated to say the least. I had been using Retrospect Express for XP but always had problems when it had filled my hard drive. I also couldn't find an upgrade path for my decade old version. I had hoped to use the native Windows backup, figuring that it had matured into a usable product.

System disk backup went fine, no complaints there. But I can't find an option that will allow me to use it to make backups of my 2nd and 3rd data drives. It is difficult for me to believe that Microsoft did not consider people may have more than one drive, so I figure it must be another "feature" of the new OS that I don't comprehend. In that other forum, the responder mentioned Windows having a backup wizard. Help knows nothing about it and I don't recall one when I set up the system image. The path he supplied for this wizard matches nothing on my Start menu, so I think he's using a dumbed-down version for those who don't want to actively manage their system.

Is there a way to backup drives other than the system disk? If not, what freeware backup utility do you recommend?

And a second question, brought up by my reading in this forum. When Windows tells me that it's doing an image backup, is that less than the entire contents of the system (C:) drive? Is it only backing up "Windows" files? I'm aware that subsequent backups will be incremental, but want to be sure that everything on the disk is backed up at least once.

Aomei is free and excellent

Best Free Backup Software for Windows 8, 7, Vista, XP and Server 2003, 2008, 2012

Macrium free version is also popular.

Macrium Reflect FREE Edition - Information and download

I appreciate your suggestions and that you took the time to answer my question. I will take a look at those products. So you are saying that there is no way to back up anything other than the drive that Windows is installed on?

Either of the above products will allow you to image your C drive and any others you chose. If you want to back up at the file level rather than partition then a product like FreeFileSync(link in my sig) will be better as it allows you to be selective in what you back up and it can be configured to only back up changed files, which saves much time and space.