Attempting the impossible?

[JohnSV]

I'm faced with a number of issues and hope this is the right forum. My intention is to image the drives of a Vista run laptop that can no longer hdd-boot. My diagnosis of the latter is that corrupted unknown (Acer) drivers force the unit into hibernation during the booting process. Acer isn't forthcoming with what software could be involved, and a Vista install disk cannot find any boot problems; so I'm forced to use Hiren's BootCD. My early questions are: Do the drivers of host/VM-client override the now corrupted drivers? Do I have any chance that the image of the old Vista C-drive will boot within a VM on a Win 7 run laptop? Is it somehow possible to do a disk2vhd? Or is the only option reinstalling all old software and data? Further questions I have may have to be queried on another forum, but I post them here so you can redirect me. Can I migrate the image or vhd to the Win 7 laptop via a crossover cable while it's being created, and do I need a tcp/ip protocol for that? I've got a live (workgroup) network between the laptops, but haven't been able to make the remote files show up in Explorer. Do "public" wifi and "home" wired lan tcp/ip connections coexist, or do I have to disconnect the former in order to make use of the latter?