Formating Hard Drive

[stewartlittle]

I have a laptop,HP Pavillion5000 with XP on it.The thing is so slow,I tried CCleaner,Malware,AVG,changing start up menu and still is very slow.
I think I need to wipe it out completely and start over,problem is I bought it used online and it didn't come with a CD.
If I format it without some kind of OS disc I can't do anything with it after that,am I right?

Or could this be an option,to download linux or something online?
But still don't know how that would work either.If I did,would my Photoshop and Corel PSP work on Linux?

 

[Grindon]

You should be able to make a recovery CD by finding the hidden folder on the C:\I386, follow this link to view the method.

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

It seems a bit long winded, if you could find a friends recovery disk that would be far easier.

Have you tried running msconfig? (looks like you have)

Changing to linux should be a last retort, try Ubuntu but before installing try running the system from a CD (live disk image). This lets you play around with it to see if you like it before you commit to a full install.

'Google' those programs to see if they work on a linux based OS.

Good Luck