Finding Images with just a link and make them the 'Featured Image'

Hi there!

I’m developing the new theme to my WordPress website, and I’m having issues with the Featured/Thumbnail Image.

Basically, the main site is at https://doubledance.ca and the new site that’s being developed is at https://new.doubledance.ca. I’ve exported all the posts from the main site to the dev site and I need to find a way to automatically fill the Featured Image field (that’s new in WP 2.9) for over 200 articles.

Is there a plugin for this? All I need to do is have a script/plugin that grabs the first image it finds in the post and associate it as the Featured Image. The only problem is, is that all the images in the 200+ posts are linked to the min site, and not the dev site. So essentially, I need the plugin to find the link to the first image in the post, DOWNLOAD the image to the new Uploads folder, and then associate it as the Featured Image.

As an added feature I’d like to do it all as a batch.

Is this even possible? If anyone has any tips or a plugin, I would LOVE any help!

Cheers ??