Replacing boot drive: how to make a copy of it?

[Kaspar Fischer <fischerk@inf.ethz.ch>]

Hi list,

I need to replace my boot disk as it starts failing (with bad blocks).
What is the easiest way to obtain, on a new harddrive (at least as
large as the old one), an exact copy of the root file system and
swap partition?

Never touch a running system -- so my intention is to *copy* the
drive instead of installing a new Debian system.

Thanks and regards,
Kaspar