Moving Data from old hard drive to new hard drive

I'm posting this question in this category , I hope it's the right place.  Here's my situation and general information. I have a Toshiba L35 S2161 laptop, it's about 5 yrs old, running WinXP Service Pack 3.   just got the blue screen, wouldn't boot, tried everything and I only have the factory provided "recovery" disc that will wipe my drive and lose all my data if I use it.  I hadn't been doing regular backups, so I want to save as much if not all of my data as I can.  I don't want to spend time here going over everything I've tried (boot disc like Knoppix, etc) which didn't work, just need to get to the bottom line and make sure I'm doing the next steps correctly.
Here's my plan:
l.  Remove old hard drive from laptop
2.  purchase new hard drive  - I've been told any drive will work, it doesn't have to be designed for a Toshiba.  I've been looking at best prices, etc. mainly Western Digital.  I may purchase a larger drive to at least get more memory , although I really didn't have that much on my old drive, but had a lot of apparent memory-related problems, freezes, etc.
3.  Install new blank drive into laptop, using the Toshiba factory recovery disc to reformat the disc and get it ready to receive the data.
4.  Insert the recovery disc into the drive, turn on the computer and HOPE that it boots it up and installs a fresh install on the new drive.  Not sure what the screen willl show at this point - I've never installed a new drive in a laptop, so will be somewhat nervous at this point to see what happens.
5.  Assuming the new drive is recognized by the recovery disc and installs a clean version of WIN XP (I'm assuming that's what's on the recovery disc that came with my computer, because it had WIN XP pre-installed), I will now be ready to transfer data from the old drive.
6.  This is the step I'm not sure what or how to do next.  I would like to clone my entire old drive onto the new drive but I'm afraid if I do that it might load damaged files that would mess up my new install.  I purchased a disc enclosure with a USB cable (haven't received it yet), and was going to use that somehow.  I presume I will plug it in and it will show up as an external drive and I can access that drive and transfer my priority files or data first and then try to transfer as much more as I can....
I need further help and information about this last step...the critical data transfer method.  There are cloning kits that are plug and play and would transfer my entire system as it was before the blue screen, but again, I'm concerned about transferring everything onto a clean install and finding myself with a computer that won't boot again because it transferred a bad file.  Also, would it overwrite or interfere with the clean install on the new drive?   I'm stuck at this point....hopefully someone out there can walk me through this final step with the best option for transfer.  I'm trying to avoid purchasing pricey software like Acronis (which I looked at online and it seemed difficult to use, to figure out what to transfer). 
My laptop is obviously out of warranty, being five years old, and I am not interested in taking it in to repair tech, I want to do this myself and I think I can with a few helpful tips.  Thanks for any help asap...

Hi!
The error message I received on the blue screen was "unmountable boot volume" which leads me to believe i have a corrupted MBR.  This fiasco happened when I turned off my computer when it was running a program (I know, bad thing to do).
I'm waiting on a new hard drive with a 120 GB (my old drive was 80GB).  I was told not to go above 120 or I'd have partition problems. 
The SATA drive enclosure powers up the old drive (I can hear the disc spinning) so the disc isn't dead.  If I''d have the full retail vesion of WinXP I would of course have used the recovery console, but I only had the toshiba recovery disc that came with my system.  Also, I couldn't burn a CD boot disc...didn't have access to another computer nor would a tech friend do it for me as he apparently made a disc for someone and their system crashed so I had no choice but to buy a new drive and try to transfer the data via the SATA external drive/usb cable.
My big question now is:  Will the Toshiba recovery disc actually reformat my new drive?  Someone on another forum with a Toshiba laptop had purchased a new drive, used the recovery disc and the cd just went into a constant loop and never went into a full install.  I'm thinking that maybe on a new drive there isn't enough knowledge base there for the recovery disc to install and reformat a new disc.  That would be a bummer because then I'd have no choice but to purchase a retail version of WinXP which I was hoping not to have to do.  Thats' getting into some $$ when added to all the other thing I've tried to get this laptop up and running .  (A Knoppix live CD boot disc didn't work either).
I don't know what service pack was on the old disc...possibly SP2, but if it was only SP1, I fear it's not going to have the ability to format a new disc.  The disc does have drivers, etc. but the question is, are they able to install the OS.  I was running XP3 when it crashed, so I know i would have to download that again.  I just want to get the darned system back up and running with my new drive and restore disc.  IF I can do that, then I'll try to transfer the data from the old drive via the external drive enclosure.
I also decided against the clone....I was afraid I'd be cloning a bad disc or errors onto a new drive, and didnt' want to stress a possibly wonky drive even more than it possibly is. 
So, that's where I'm at now!  Thanks so much for any further insight into this....something tells me the recovery disc isn't going to format my new drive but fingers crossed...more thoughts/feedback appreciated!

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