Acronis works great and will do incremental backups after the first full one is in place.
The enclosure/data cable idea works good too - just make sure you have one that supports laptop size hard drives.
Another good program for booting windows from a dvd can be found here (note that you will need a windows install disc handy in order to create this solution) ---> Bart's Preinstalled Environment (BartPE) bootable live windows CD/DVD