Thinking about reformatting a laptop. Any suggestions?

[NM_Shooter]

I have an old laptop that I am considering re-installing windows after a reformat.  This is an old computer and could use a ground-up reconfiguration of the OS and utilities. 

I no longer have (perhaps never had) all the drivers for the hardware components on that laptop.  I'm trying to figure out the least painful way to get this down and back up. 

It has Windows 7 Home Premium currently installed.  I'm not sure if I can get it back to the state that it was in when it was fresh from the factory.  I am considering purchasing a stand alone version of Win 7 if I can not bring it back to it's native configuration. 

My concern is figuring out how to get all the HW components identified and drivers located for them. 

Any suggestions?

[UK4X4]

Depends on the age of the laptop and wether the manufacturer still holds the drivers

With really old units it's best to keep the OS relating to the equipment- as many drivers for example a win XP computer- the driver won't work with win 7 and tracking down latest versions take time.

major manufactures will supply a CD if requested with the whole orginal setup - if you send them the TAG or serial number

Dell are good with this from my experience

[NM_Shooter]

I've been poking around, and it appears that ASUS has a hidden partition that includes all the re-install stuff to bring it back to factory.  Looks like holding F9 during power on boot initiates this utility. 

Here is hoping that is an easy way out.

[NM_Shooter]

Done.

Back up and running.  I should have done this a long time ago.  Asus made this easy for me.

[MountainDon]

I think most of the makes have a fairly easy built in system. As long as you don't actually format the actual physical drive the hardest part is finding the key sequence to initiating the new system install. Well, that and then removing all the crapware that gets reinstalled with the new system.