MegaSack DRAW - This year's winner is user - rgwb
We will be in touch
What's the best plan of action?
Ok all the important stuff is backed up to an external HD and also the most important stuff (photos & music) is also on an internal 200 gig HD so I'm not terribly worried but I can't be arsed installign all my software all over again and Windows for that matter...
Can I clone my C drive to another hard drive and swap them over?
Yes
I use Macruim backup, http://www.macrium.com/
It's free and seems to work. I've used it for real once when my media centre PC started to play up. Cloned it over the network to a shared drive, installed a new drive then pulled it back, after booting from a USB stick.
There's various cloning solutions. I use Acronis - well worth the asking price.
One tip though, if you're going to do it, do it -before- the drive fails completely. The longer you leave it, the harder it's going to be.