PC utilities: cloning hard drive advice needed....

cloning hard drive advice needed....

i just installed a new maxtor 200 gb hard drive. i would like to clone my existing hard drive (160 gb west. dig). i d/l and tried hdclone, although it did not work. so after some research on free utilities, i tried maxblast 5, since my new drive is a maxtor. it installed, but when i tried to run the program to clone, it would not work, and my computer would restart. trust me, i tried to troubleshoot (?drivers, etc..) with no luck. theoretically, maxblast should work as long as one of the hd was a maxtor. it did not, i gave it up.

now my question is, of the pay programs, which is the best? i have fully researched/read reviews about both ghost and acronis. the problem is, people have had nothing but problems it seems with both programs recently...meaning the newer versions.

i have am emachines running xp with sp3. any suggestions/advice/experience with any other freebies or pay programs?
also, i considered drive image xml, but it seems more complicated that just a simple clone i should be able to boot up and run if the hd fails.

jimmy