Hard drive tansfer

Sorry if this isnt in the right place but my hard drive has prblems and i knew this since i started using it but the warranty ended before i started using it so I can't switch it so my solution is to buy a new hard drive and transfer all my data from one hard drive to the other. Now is this as simple as copy and pasting all files or are there special instructions on how to do this? For example do I have to format my new hard drive or install it in a certain way or etc.?
Please help me out if you know what to do or if you had personally did this but if you can't help me then thanks for reading this.

Use disk imaging software and your new drive should be as big or bigger than your original. Here is a good one
http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing...oad/trueimage/
This may help you
http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.c...eid=418&page=1

Only thing to bear in mind is that to ensure you have enough space inside your case to fit two drives temporarily :)

I'd recomend that Acronis software as well, they've always been reliable for me and buying online from them was pretty straightforward and fast.