Hard drive dying, backup options?

I have a work server pc with a dying hard drive, Im given a prompt to make a windows backup, Iv never done this and not sure what aspects are backed up. This pc is my server for work and the guy that help us set it up as a working server is no longer around. I need to find out if there is a way to basically clone this hard drive with all the settings onto another hard drive and still have it act as the server as intended. I don't know what the best options to do this, any help of the appreciated.

Windows version?

Windows Backup by default will backup your logical disks. You'll need the OS install media to restore back-ups created with it.

I personally use Win Server Backup at work (USB3 HDD on weekly schedule), and it works well, but one potential pitfall is this: the more complex your hardware config is (raid, etc.) the more tied you are to that specific hardware. Restoring to dissimilar configs can be problematic.

You could try using Macrium or Acronis at this point to attempt cloning the HDD to a new one.

Macrium has a free version available, you'll need to install it on a working PC, and create bootable rescue media from the software.

In situations where Macrium has trouble, I turn to linux (dd, PartedMagic).

It's windows 7, it's not a standard server but runs a extremely basic site for my company. Ill look into macrium and acronis, thanks

Go to Start, Backup and Restore. On left side, click "create a system image." That's the full backup.

I used Macrium Reflect to clone the windows 7 hard drive to a new SSD. After the cloning I used the boot menu to pick the SSD and it appeared to load up that drive but I dont think it actually did. I think it still boots into the dying HDD. Though if I only have the dying drive connected, it seems the boot takes longer and the windows is slower. Another thing I noticed is if I pick the SSD from the boot menu, change the background color, if I restart and pick the dying hard drive, the same color I just picked is now the color on that drive. Which again tells me Im not actually getting into the SSD.

If I disconnect the dying drive, when I try to boot into the SSD it keeps saying "loading desktop" then the loaded screen is just a blank blue screen with the cursor and at the bottom right it says “This copy of windows is not genuine”. I tried bringing up task manager and starting new task, entered explorer.exe which brings up a very basic desktop but Im limited in what I can access. No control panel or windows explorer, ect.

I've never used Reflect, but needing to reactivate isn't unusual.

Broken explorer is. Did you kill any explorer.exe processes before starting the new task? Alternatively, Windows might be having trouble loading your profile. Can you create a new account via "control userpasswords2"?