Cloning vista without doing a disk image

I'm working on a friend's computer, away from home and my tools

He recently got a new HDD which he has already filled with a bunch of crap, but he wants me to copy his Windows Vista install intact from the old HDD to the new. Problem is, he wants to keep the crap.

Is there any way other than doing a disk image [and so losing his data on the target drive] which I can clone windows to the new disk?

I was wondering whether I could just copy the system folders and then find some way of copying the boot sector from one HDD to the other?

Partition the drive around (after) his data then move his data to the "back" side of the drive then that leaves the "front" of the drive free for the OS.

+1 to what Earthdog said... You wouldn't be able to transfer everything manually, preserving ACL's and other sensitive bits and pieces. You'll want to go the image route, so you can partition like he suggested or use an external drive. You can always undo the partitioning once you have everything where it needs to be.

You might also be able to clone the existing OS to the new drive via the new HDD manufacturer's software (like DiscWizard or MaxBlast for example), after first partitioning the drive to retain the existing data like EarthDog and IMOG mentioned.

Thanks guys.