An external case for the hard drive with a wire that connects to USB will make the drive usable as an external drive, however 2 Terabyte external drives are now about $100. My choice! Have a 1 and a 2 now. Got them at Tiger Direct, the 2 is an ESATA interface drive, just as fast as internal.

The System Restore will probably not wipe the drive clean, it usually keeps the data intact, just removes programs.

A System Restore Copy program will make an exact copy of the drive which can be used to run the computer just like the original drive.