From HDD to HDD

with origin i just cut the files out to the new hardrive start the install close origin and then put the files where they should be in the new drive and resume download it will just detect the files then
uplay id assume the same
and i also did it with starcraft 2

I'd reccommend putting your new HDD in your old pc, copy your old HDD data(but make sure you use a partition or hard drive tool to do it) to the new one and put it back in your new pc

Along with what CroSlaughter said, if your computer has a second hard drive plug in, plug your new one in there. I do believe that OSes are non-transferable so you might need to buy a new one (someone correct me on this). I think you will need to re-download all of your games which sucks because trust me, my WiFi is crappy too. If your computer does not have a second hard drive plug in then you will just need to take over what you can transfer have in a flash drive. Unless you know a lot about building computer I would look up the best practices on Google so you know what to do and what not to do. If you have any more questions you can just add me on Steam and I am sure I can answer them.

Sources: I built my own computer.

There was some software for full backup/mirroring/cloning (including OS transfer, but you'll need to reinstall the drivers of course) of the HDD by making an image of the old HDD and transferring it to the new one. Try search on google for Norton Ghost or whatever its successors are...

You can clone your old HDD to the new one. Most brands even have a free utility software to do so. Now, if you want to copy specific things there must be backup softwares that can do that.

i just copy pasted everything onto my new hdd and had no problems with steam/uplay etc. i had to reinstall some older non-steam games that required registry entries though.

i'm not recommending doing this with the OS. it's probably better to do a fresh OS installation especially when changing from hdd to ssd