Help me use HDD to back-up SDD OS Partition

I did a fresh Win8 install on an SSD, so I'm trying to take the original 1TB HDD and use it as a secondary drive. I would also like this drive to be used as the "recovery" drive is possible.

Nothing (well some things) would make me feel safer than having the 40GB SSD based drive C with OS, drivers, and a few essential small programs all neatly imaged into the HDD.

1. I deleted all the partitions on the original HDD and formatted it as NTFS. But for some reason I still have a 300MB partition that I can't delete or merge with the rest of the drive.
2. Is it even possible to use the HDD as the recovery drive in case my SSD dies? if so, how can I do this?

Thank you so much in advance.

edit: my apology for the dyslexia in "SSD" for the thread title.

 

Yes the HDD can be your recovery drive. Try Downloading ubuntu Download Ubuntu Desktop | Ubuntu (32 bit version) create the DVD or USB .. boot from it - Do not install "try ubuntu before you ..." then follow this How to format a USB or external drive? - Ask Ubuntu.
Does you machine have the capability to use 2 or more hard drives?
Then install an imaging program such as Paragon backup free edition or just use windows backup to image the SSD to the HDD.

 

so if I understand correctly, you're saying install Paragon or some other imaging program in linux (ubuntu)
Then in the event of a crash just boot into ubuntu and copy the image back from HDD to (a new or fixed) SSD?

by the way, the computer in question is:
ASUS G75VX with both bays used. One has a 120GB SSD with the 40GB windows partition in question. The other bay has the original 1TB HDD.

Lots of questions come up in my mind, because I'm not used to linux. I suppose this is the only way, since if the SSD crashes, I won't have an operating system to load up. So ubuntu from a USB makes sense.