Originally Posted by cordelli
I would back off everything you want to save.
Documents, cookies, mails, address books, bookmarks, etc.
Then I would use the restore disk to bring it back to factory new. Refomatting would work if you had all the drivers you needed for the laptop too, but if you restore it with the restore CD it will put those on it for you.
Run all the windows updates, then import the cookies, bookmarks, etc.
You may also need to update the drivers from the manufacturers web site for best performance, often they are going to be newer than the ones that the restore CD installs.
This is sometimes power and other manufacturer specific stuff (Dell is good example) like wireless utilities need updates.