Dying HDD....back up and transfer files?

Hi, Probably a simple question with a complex answer, but my primary HDD is failing (but is still working) and I've replaced it with a new one. Now, what do I do to transfer over all the programs and files from the old HDD? I'm running WinXP SP3 on both drives and both are SATA. I have installed the new WD 500GB Caviar Black, put on XP and did Windows Update so it has all available updates. Also reinstalled my AV which is Computer Associates Security Suite. Used the ASUS MB cd to load some necessary drivers but other than that, its pretty clean. Main concern is reinstalling Firefox, Thunderbird w/o losing the data contained in those programs. I have some pictures in Picasa and mp3's in db Power Amp (no big deal). All in all the old drive was using a total of 50GB of 500GB when it started going bad. There is a possibility that there is some corrupt data as whenever I opened T'Bird it crashed the drive after 15 mins or so. Looking for some advice here…I did do some prelim backups of large files but not much else as it caught me by surprise. The Maxtor drive was only 18 mos old! Thanks, Taz

Remember, Google is your friend.

Transfer Thunderbird settings

Transfer Firefox settings

Most drives have a 5 year warranty so it would be worth contacting Maxtor to see what they say. If this had been me, I would have cloned the old HD to the new one so you wouldn't have had to do anything other than remove the old one once the cloning was done.

One of the first things I checked was the warranty. Unfortunately, Maxtor was sold to Seagate and all the information on the Seagate site says this was only a one year warranty drive (putting the S/N into their system), altho I SWEAR I thought it was 3 when I bought it. The Maxtor website no longer exists.