OS for New Hard Drive

[jessnew]

I have an R61 laptop and am considering upgrading to an SSD for both performance enhancement and a sneaking suspicion the current system may have some sort of trojan.  After I install the new hard drive how would I be able to install the OS?  I currently have XP Pro.  I believe I've made recovery disk but cannot locate them (system is 3 yrs old).  Is there any way to accomplish this w/o a totally clean install of a newly bought OS?

Any help would be appreciated.

[jessnew]

I guess this is a tough one.  I'll go with an upgrade to Windows 7. Thx.

[GMAC-R60 Retired Guru]

if you have an OEM version of xp pro you can use it and the key on your R61 but I would go with win. 7