Failing HDD, attempting to create system image

Over the past few weeks there have been signs that my HDD (the only one in my PC) is failing. It could even worse last week when I couldn't boot up a couple of times because the disk was 'bad'.

• I have a NAS connected that saves all my files.
• I have also purchased a replacement HDD (SSD).
• However, I don't have any saved system 'images', which I understand I will need unless I want to start with a 'fresh/clean' copy on my new HDD and have to install everything again from scratch.
• To that end, I did some research and found out about "File History's" ability to help create a system image.
• I have tried running it 3 times now (each time takes hours), the 1st time it errored out (reporting "Backup failed") around the 15% mark, the 2nd time it errored out around 95% but seemed to save a partial image in my NAS (I say partial because the size seems slightly smaller than the space I am currently using), the 3rd time it errored out sometime after 80% (I was sleeping so didn't see the exact point), but did not seem to overwrite the partial image from the 2nd attempt.
• Before the 3rd attempt I had also tried 'checking and repairing' my disk via right-click on the C:/, tools, and 'repair'.

Is there anything else I can try at this point, or just keep trying the system image creation and hope I get lucky and it successfully completes at some point?

Assuming I do get it to successfully complete, would the next step be to physically hook up the replacement drive in one of the drive bays, and then use File History to load the created system image onto it? Or is it more complicated than that?

If I am unable to ever get the system image to successfully create fully, what is my next best course of action? I think I should still have the recovery CD that came with the computer.

Thanks in advance!

Hopefully the following could somehow apply:

1) Search for and download from their site (not sure if I'm allowed to post the web address here, but it says 'boot-disk' in the web address): Active Boot Disk 10
2) Burn the file to a CD/DVD
3) Set your BIOS priority to load from the CD ROM drive first
4) Wait for the system to load
5) After it all loads, hopefully you can open your HDD (this creates a temporary operating system on your RAM, which is different from your HDD, I'm sure you know what that means)
6) If browsing your HDD takes a decent amount of short time, LUCKY YOU. Save your important files that you want. If not... then reply with so.
6b) If you can load up the folders really quickly/copy files really quickly, then there might be something wrong with the OS...i think
7) It's probably possible to install some program on this temporary OS that can save a system image. save your HDD.

Hope this helps somehow