Is my laptop dying?

[wyrd33]

Over the last few days, my computer has been booting up very, very slowly. Whenever I load up another program (even a web browser), my computer becomes slow and my mouse "skips" because of the loading.

I've tried running every virus and spyware program I can think of. Nothing was detected other than registry problems which were fixed. I also defraged my HD.

Today I hop on my computer and got a blue screen of death. First one I've seen in 5 years. When it rebooted, Windows XP checked the C drive for problems. That took about 30 minutes and my computer booted up. I guess it didn't detect anything.

I can't reformat. It's an old Dell laptop and I don't have any of the CDs. A friend suggested reformatting with linux. Thoughts on that?

So here I am. What options do I have? Does it sound like the HD is dying, perhaps just some OS problems (reformat), or maybe a virus/spyware?

I was thinking:
a) Buy a new laptop.
b) Reformat with a linux option.

Recommendation? TIA.

--

Computer Specs:

ati mobility radeon x300
windows xp media center edition
intel 1.6ghz
512mb of ram
integrated sound I believe
no idea on mobo or anything else.

 

[ssc456]

is taht your sig or part of the post ? sigs areo only ment to b 5 line ....

that laptop is more than capable of running xp just fin id just reformat it and put xp on it.