How to copy multi-partition installation (MS and Linux) to new disk drive?

[Chris Green]

I have a new SSD SATA disk drive that I want to use in a laptop.  The
existing drive is a 240Gb spinning hard disk, the new drive is a 480Gb
SSD.

There are several partitions to be copied across plus the boot sectors
etc.  What's the least painful way of doing all this?

If I simply use dd (on another system, the laptop has only one disk
slot) to copy from /dev/<old disk> to /dev/<new disk> would this copy
everything including all the boot code, windows partitions etc.? (I
know I'd have to resize the partitions afterwards).

Are there easier ways to do this?

I have other systems and lots of disk space available so could use
gparted (for example) from a USB stick to copy stuff out and then back
but would this manage all the windows partitions and boot stuff OK?


-- 
Chris Green