OK, I think I got it transfered.

I used two knoppix cds to boot the machines to runlevel 2.

This is the command I used on the receiving laptop:

nc -l -p 1234 | gunzip -c | dd of=/dev/hda

Then on the sending machine:

dd if=/dev/hda | gzip -c | nc -w 3 -n 192.168.0.31 1234

Now I just need to fix the MBR.