[NTLUG:Discuss] HDD recovery

[Fred]

It is said that to ask a question, one must know most of the answer. In my case,
"most" certainly doesn't mean "all", so here goes:

I friend has a Vista system with an error message about imminent hdd failure,
probably from S.M.A.R.T. He is obviously upset because of no backups (ever)
and about a gig of total usage (os + data).

I can bring his hdd here and dd his old 320G drive to a new 500G but having never
actually having cloned a drive to a larger one, I have a few questions:

1) dd if=/dev/sdX of=/dev/sdY is the basic cmd but how do I decide what bs to use? 
What about other options?
2) Will this clone the disk including the MBR? My guess is yes...
3) What to do after the dd cmd? How to make the remaining 180G (or so) available?
If parted will do it, how?

Thanks in advance.
Fred