help needed with copying hard drive

Hello:
Can anybody give me advice?
I am a professional photographer running Vista 64, and with 2-3 Tb of data, Most of my smaller (<300Gb) drives are full and I need to be able to copy the data from one to another, then store the original in a safe, until I get my NAS drive built.
I have formatted the latest 500Gb and am ready to move the data across. Vista however doesn't like moving such huge amounts and seems to alter the properties of the files.
Is there any seamless and BULLET-PROOF way of doing this?
do I need a special app?
What makes it more awkward is that I would like to combine 2 smaller drives into one. Is this possible?
Thanx:confused

 

For best results, you'll probably need something like Norton Ghost, and it's not cheap, about $70... there's freeware available in the Back Up section here at MajorGeeks... And, yes... you can put 2 drives on one, but they'd have to be on seperate partitions...

 

I just picked up Acronis for $15. It was $40.

 

I forgot..... Welcome to MajorGeeks! :major