Is possible to mirror a hard drive to hot swap it out of a laptop?

I dropped my laptop recently, and damaged the hard drive. Took a few days and some recovery software, but I was able to get it up and running again, but was informed in a different thread I started that I should get a new one because the one I have now is only going to get worse.

So my main problem is the 6 hour process it will take me to reinstall windows, all the drivers, and all my programs, and data. Is there any ways that I would be able to put the new hard drive into an enclosure, mirror the hard drives, and then take out the old one put in the new and have it work? Or do I have to do the 6 hour thing?

You could image the drive, yes. I haven't personally used DriveImage XML, but I see it suggested frequently. I've used Acronis and it works very well, but it isn't free.

Thank you again for your help!

After you restore it, be on the watch for broken items. If you start getting programs crashing, you will probably have to reinstall since the data is likely corrupted.

Assuming you have a desktop, plug your old and new HDD in, then copy the partitions (link below). Most likely your new HDD is larger, so use the 2nd tool to resize.

Of course if you go pro, run dd in a live CD environment

Use this:
http://www.easeus.com/disk-copy/
and this:
http://www.partition-tool.com/personal.htm