Anything with grub2 (v1.99-X) should be able to cope with it.

Especially, if you boot into a "rescue mode" of your favorite install distro CD... then just edit the UUID list.

Print out/save the original info... as of right now, if you have a UUID mounting system, the UUIDs are in fstab and you can just put it in /root/fstab...

Edit the UUIDs in the /boot/grub/grub.cfg and you should be good to go, as long as the boot sector is installed.

Also, tiptoe in /etc/grub.d/ and in /etc/default/grub you might be surprised.

*IF* and only IF, you have a Linux that still can/does use "hd0,0" or even device names... then you don't have to worry Just edit... voila.

One other thing you can do...

Install the same version of linux on the new disk... then transfer everything over except for /boot/* and /lib/modules/*

Remember, you will always have the OLD disk to fall back to, so only thing lost is your time (yes I know, it sucks), so not much to lose.

I never had a "nonrecoverable" from it, but I've had enough bad experience, as I'd rather not chance anything anymore.

Personally, I'd make a loopback writeable filesystem on another machine and and rsync everything from the laptop to the loopback filesystem.

Then when you've installed stuff grabs the stuff you need from the loopback filesystem. Or transfer the loopback filesystem to the new drive and mount it there and go and grab things as you need it.

There are indeed so many ways you can proceed, its not even funny. Easiest plan would be to have the drives both spinning on the same machine and copy from there.

But, anyway.