Replace a slower, smaller laptop hard drive with a newer, faster and larger capacity one. This article shows how, using a tool to clone your existing system onto the new drive (external USB) and then swap it in. Then use your older drive as a second, external, backup drive.

Or skip the tool, just buy a new hard drive with external usb enclosure and make the swap and install a fresh load of XP.

Reader: "I saw a 40GB laptop hard drive and external usb2 laptop HD enclosure on sale for $149 at outpost.com and bought it. The enclosure is made by Kingwin, and is bus powered. The hard drive was a 40GB Hitachi unit. I put the new drive in my Compaq laptop, and put my laptop's old 10Gig Hitachi drive in the enclosure. Now, I walk around with 10Gigs in my pocket, which is great for moving stuff between the office and home, or just sharing stuff between two buddies..."