i'm pretty uneducated about this, but i've been told that the hard drive on my toshiba laptop needs to be replaced. i have a recovery disc, but if i put a new hard drive in, will i have to buy all new software, windows, etc?

The recovery disk will have Windows on it. For other software like M$ Office you'll need those disks.

thanks!! so i should just have to plug in the new hard drive and put in the disc and run it and i will have factory default settings?

youll have to do a system recovery, i guess
technically it works....technically..

i'm thinking this might be a job better left to the professionals or a tech savy friend?

not that hard, but System Restore sometimes doesnt work.

I recently did a System Restore, and that normally backs up your files to the original drive, but seeing as the new drive won't have any files to back up, it wouldn't be a problem. All it would do is just a fresh install of XP, and as for the old files on your hard drive, find your tech savvy friend and he/she should be able to connect your old hard drive to an external or a new hard drive, as if it was an external drive (through using some kind of cable. My IT Technician at my school told me about this) and it can be shown as an external drive, and then simply copy the files over.

Exactly. You can buy empty external hard drive cases that you can plug a regular hd into and then it becomes a portable usb drive.

That's exactly what I meant to say.