Originally Posted by status1

"Obvious is to reformat, etc, but..the pain of putting everything back."

After you set up xp on the new drive you could use the file and settings transfer wizzard to put everything back.
I haven't used it yet I was just reading about it yesterday and I was thinking of using it myself
Of course that implies that the files and settings do not have any issues otherwise you will transfer them to your new hard drive