Can I Clone a partition into external hard disk ?

[Dexter]

Can i clone a specific partition into external hard disk ? This is my situation.

My laptop has a 500GB hard drive. I have 2 partition on this laptop.
The Primary partition ( OS partition) seriously affected by virus.

Unfortunately i am not an IT expert, i try to install windows 8.1 , and i format the C drive and want to install windows 8, however i could not install the windows due to "Windows cannot be installed on this disk. The selected disk is of the GPT style."

I try to every way to install windows 8 , unfortunately i cannot install windows 8 partition unless i delete all the partition and create new partition.

I have some very previous client files on another partition. Therefore my question is, i can clone specific partition of my laptop into my external hard disk ( same size 500GB as my laptop ) .

I just want to make sure every steps of it is right, try to minimize the risk although i know thhis software not guarantee on file lost / corrupted.

HELP ME PLS. WHAT SHOULD I DO ?

[Steven Shiau]

Yes, if you want to clone a partition to the a partition on external disk, you can follow
http://clonezilla.org/show-live-doc-content.php?topic=clonezilla-live/doc/03_Disk_to_disk_clone
and remember to choose "part_to_local_part":
http://clonezilla.org/clonezilla-live/doc/03_Disk_to_disk_clone/images/ocs-06-disk-to-local-disk-clone.png

//NOTE//

1. By cloning, the destination partition will be overwritten, i.e. all the data on the destination partition will be gone. A better case is to image, i.e. to use "saveparts" and save the image on the external disk.
2. Backup important data before you use Clonezilla. Just in case.

Steven.