Dell Latitude D820: I want at least 120 GB hard disk drive

Q: I have a Dell Latitude D820. Unfortunately it as got only 60GB hard disk SATA drive. I want at least 120 GB hard disk drive because it is not sufficient for running all my study related programs. I am planning to change my hard drive. I have installed Windows Vista Ultimate and some other programs for my studies. I don't want to lose them. I can reinstall them later also, but only as a last option. Using an external hard drive for the OS is ruled out. Is there any way by which I may be able to copy my entire hard drive to another hard drive with more capacity to be used in the same computer??? I mean the whole Vista OS should be usable after the entire hard drive is copied. No critical reason. Just that I don't like the idea of using an external drive. For "thedeath" I have mentioned that I am going to use the new hard drive on the same system as a replacement for the old drive. So I think the issue for system compatibility does not arise. Does it?

A: There is no way within Windows itself to transfer Windows and apps to a new hard drive. You would need to use a third party program such as Norton Ghost or Drive Image. They allow you to clone hard drives. The problem you will have is that to clone them, you have to have both drives attached to the computer at the same time, or you have to have room enough to make a complete backup your hard drive. If you are running out of space on your 60G drive, you probably do not have room to make a full back up on it. So you would have to find a way to attach the 120G without removing the 60G. Best method is to use a USB enclosure. You put the 120G into the special case and then attach it as an external drive, do the clone, and then swap it into the laptop. The 60G drive can then be put into the enclosure, formatted, and used as an external hard drive for file storage and backups.