Formutable

Okay, so I would like to reformat my laptop to give as a gift to my parent (Gaming-esque laptop on the way). I have a few questions.

1) What steps should I take to format it?
2) Will my programs, such as Microsoft office, etc. require re-validation, and if so will it use another "use" of the program?
3) Will I need another Vista: Ultimate home edition disk to recover the Vista that I have, and if I do, will I need a new validation key?
4) How should I store all of my music, photos, pictures, etc. So that I can re-install it on my new computer?

Thanks for taking the time to read this, I appreciate it.

greenbrucelee

you will need to back up all your data if you wish to put it back on i.e on an external disk drive. When you format a disk you are removing everything from it.

So if you do not have a windows disk or recovery disc you will need one and if you have to get new disks you will need a new key which will come with the disc. If you do not have a recovery disk you will need the motherboard chipset drivers disk too.