hard drive transfer

If you want to transfer everything, including the Vista operating system, you're looking at cloning. There are several free cloning utilities out there but I personally prefer to pay a small amount and buy Acronis True Image. You can clone to a larger hard disk if you like but a clone is exactly that and it will carry over any flaws the system has.

If all you want to do is reinstall on to a new hard disk and transfer your files over, just copy and paste thee entire C:\Users folder with your name on it. You can't transfer programmes in that way - they need to be reinstalled but cloning would be able to do that.