Is it possible to recover my system from another hard drive without recovery drive?

[Redthirst]

Right now I have two hard drives. Is it possible to set it up so that in case my main hard drive fails completely, I can just boot up my PC using the second drive.

All advice I've got so far involves using the built-in backup tools to create a system image, but the problem is that this method requires a recovery disk/drive in order to actually restore the image. What I want is a system backup where I save a system image to another hard drive and in case of a failure can use that hard drive to restore my system, without having to use a recovery USB drive.

Alternatively, would it be possible to create a full copy of my system on my second drive, so in case my main one fails I can just swap the boot order and start my OS normally from my second drive?

 

[SkyNetRising]

Is it possible to set it up so that in case my main hard drive fails completely, I can just boot up my PC using the second drive.

Sure. Clone contents of first drive to second.

 

[Redthirst]

Is it possible to set it up so that in case my main hard drive fails completely, I can just boot up my PC using the second drive.

Sure. Clone contents of first drive to second.

Any advice on how to best do it? And is it possible to only clone the system partition?

 

[SkyNetRising]

You do it with appropriate software. Macrium Reflect free, Minitool partition wizard free - both can do it.
And yes - you can clone system partition only. But bootloader partition is necessary also.