Free way to clone HDD to SSD?

Problem

Is there a free way to clone a full Windows 7 installation from HDD to SSD? (The free part is important, I know I can pay for Acronis True Image.) SSDs are usually much smaller than HDDs which complicates matters. For instance, I have about 50GB data, my new SSD is 80GB but I still can't use Windows clone/restore system if my HDD is something like 300GB. Therefore, I'm looking for a third party tool that will be able to: Create a clone of my C: partition Store it onto an external USB drive Boot from some rescue / restore CD Load the image onto the new SSD Acronis True Image seems like a tool that should support this but it's a paid-for software and the trial version cannot create clones. Acronis Migrate Easy is a fully functional tria for 15 days but need both the HDD and SSD connected at the same time which is a bit of a problem for me as a laptop user. P.S. I almost got there combining Windows image backup combined with Acronis True Image restore CD (which can load .vhd's) but was n…