Time to start again!!

[Hard-Drive]

My home PC has got to stupidly bad levels of performance, takes ages to do anything whatsoever. After trying a defrag, various Virus/spyware tools etc, I've decide that the best thing will be to wipe it clean and start again.

I have an external hard drive used to back up my work PC, so presumably I can back up all docs/music etc to that external drive first. After that, what's invovled? What do I need to make sure I have before I wipe it, how do I wipe it?

Rather worryingly, I cannot find the Windows disc (the PC was brought new from PC World with it pre-installed). In fact, I don't know if it ever had one, will MS have a record of it? It has a product key sticker stuck to the bottom of the PC, and I do have the Office disc.

Thanks in advance!

[ThePassenger]

Microsoft's response will be something along the lines of: "Thank you for calling Microsoft, please may I have your credit card details?" And they'll sell you Vista.

You could also phone up the manufacturer of the machine (it's not PC World) and ask them how much for the media? They will then ask for your credit card details... assuming they will sell you anything.

Best bet. If the sticker on the bottom has a serial number on it, download a copy of WinXP from 'somewhere' and reinstall feeding it that serial number when prompted. You might need to use a dodgy serial and then change it for your legit version depending on what version (retail or OEM) you've snagged.

Yes the above is perfectly legal as you have a license to use the software.