Hp reinstall disk or cloning HD

I have a Hp laptop that I will get the recovery cd soon but what I'd like to know is will I have to have the XP key when I go to reinstall windows? The sticker on the bottom has been torn half off and I can only read 11 letter/numbers left on the sticker.Will I have to call MS and buy a new key? I think the HD is failing (makes funny noises) so I want to get a new one and do a clean install.I'd rather not lose some of my programs/files and I've read about cloning a hard drive but not for a laptop with no external HD and even then I'm not sure how??!! I also seen some articles about copying some files or something to save the activation stuff in windows but have no idea about what there talking about. So even if I get the reinstall disks from HP they would do me no good without the COA sticker. Lots of question in her ...sorry but I don't want to have a dead laptop that I can't afford to fix!$$

 

i didn't notice you had a duplicate thread in hardware. my response is actually on the other thread (link below).

http://forums.majorgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=152508