many good options have been mentioned, but I'll just say we use Ghost at work and I've been using that for 7+ years with no problems, doing this same exact thing. Started with ghost v6, then 7.5, now ver 11 something. Mind you these are single partition drives, and with nothing newer than WinXP for the OS.
Where are you finding Ghost for $10??
not necessary as ghost does this all in one step (sorry I've never been an advocate for PM)
Ghost to clone the partition
Partition Magic to expand it to 500GB
not necessary as ghost does this all in one step (clone drive > drive), assuming you can have both drives plugged in at the same time.
We never had to do all that. Make an image with Ghost and then image the new drive. It automagically adjusts to the new drive size.