Starting anew to get faster

My almost 3 years old laptop is getting slower and slower so I would like to delete all there is on it and start over.Problem,when I bought the thing new,it didn't come with a Windows XP professional disk so how do you save that OS to reinstall it later ?Also,I don't have an outside hard drive so I was thinking saving all my stuff to a tower and then put it back in my laptop.That can be done...right ?(but,I never did plug my laptop to another computer.What king of exit port on the laptop should be use?).
P.S.Is deleting everything enough or should I format the hard drive(and how do you do that?)Thanks!

 

If there wasn't an xp-disc with the laptop then there's a recovery CD or a recovery partition that's hidden on the laptop. Read you manual for how to re-install.


I don't know. What's a tower?

To plug your computer to another, you're just using the same as you do now connecting to internet, internet is like connecting to millions of other computers if you didn't know that.

Read your manual for how to re-install as said!

 

I think you can use Nero imaging software to create a burnable ISO of the operating system. Again, I dont know if this is possible, I think I read it somewhere.

What you can do is try software like Acronis Trueimage to image your drive. Simply follow the instructions online and you should be good to go.

If you want to just speed the system up now without reinstalling the operating system, go to the start button, go to the run command and type in MSCONFIG. Than go into the services and startup tabs and shut off any background processes you are not using. That will free up cpu, memory and harddrive cycles, making your system faster.
It is also a good idea to clear history, run disc cleanup and disc defragmenter to help bring the performance back.

K-TRON

 

By tower I meant a desktop computer.Never did connect my laptop to the Internet via a cable because it has Wi-Fi so will have to look if I can find that cable.I already did the disc defragment thing but it didn't change anything.Thanks for all the answers.

 

I see

The thing is, i never mentioned a cable to connect to the internet, thus you don't need one as you say. You can do it wireless if you wish.

The easiest way of having a local area network at home is to use a switch(or a hub, with or without wifi) and have all the computer connected to that one, and then easily share a folder/HDD from one computer to the network and then connect to one or the other computer via the network and sharing-thingy in windows.

 

Well..I will need a cable because the desktop computer I will use to temporarily store my stuff will be from the University and it's not mine.

 

http://www.howtohaven.com/system/createwindowssetupdisk.shtml

there you go

 

Thanks!for the link.