I used a pair of those 3.65 2.5 inch drive adaptors and Norton's Ghost.
The clone ran and then the new drive booted in the laptop.
Painless. Of course I've done this dozens of times, but if you want 100% ironclad it will work, then even I can't give you that. No one will.
Bob
Purchased an identical hdd for my Toshiba 6100 laptop. With an IDE cable adapter I will install it into my desktop as a slave. With the use of Norton ghost or other mirror software I hope to mirror and back up daily my laptop hdd onto the desktop slave hdd over my network. The reason for identical drives is so I can swap it into my laptop in the`event the current hdd craps out (calling this toshiba hdd crap is being kind, I am on my third unit in two years!)
My main concern is will I be able to boot from it like nothing even happen. I dont want to deal with recoveries or reload my OS I just want to plug it in and go. I spoke with the Norton people but I get the feeling there not sure. Thanks!

Chowhound
Comic Vine
GameFAQs
GameSpot
Giant Bomb
TechRepublic