Please Help A Newbie With A Quick Question:

I recently Won a sony vaio vgn-fz140e. I dont know a thing about it except it has vista premium home 32.
Is my computer any good? I know its a generic question. But it general, I was curious. But anyway, On to my question:

I have messed up the computer by downloading games onto it. It runs incredibly slow all of a sudden,and when restarted, Will stop just befor the desktop with a blank black screen. It will stay that way forever unless I eject the cd drive. and put it back in. when I do this the computer makes a bit of noise, and the desktop finally loads, and of corse it tries to load the cd. (an audio cd)
I have a upto date version of AVG virus scan and it hasnt detected anything. I figure all there is to do is re format. Which I wouldnt actually mind doing. But heres the problum.
My laptop DID NOT come with any vista cd!!!!
The laptop has a vista sticker on the bottom with the proper key. I guess thats a good start. So again, Heres my question:
Can I use my buddys vista cd to load onto mine, after I format it, and use MY key? OR Will my machine only allow the origonal copy of vista to be installed? if so, Whats my next step?
Please help!
Thanks in advance for the help guys, Looking forward to serfing this site.

PS. Is there a quick explination for the differnce between vista 32, and 64?
And If my buddys vista cd will work on my computer with my key, does his copy also have to be vista home premium 32 bit?
Thanks again everyone!!

Your computer is a pretty decent computer. Note that it should have a recovery partition on it given that it came with no DVD--apparently not even a recovery DVD. If your recovery partition is functional, then you should be able to return your computer to factory fresh without using your friend's DVD.

Still, assuming that your friend has 32-bit Vista, you probably can accomplish what you want. The install will not be a problem. However, you may have to talk to MS for a successful activation. MS is pretty good about approving "unusual" activations when the circumstances are reasonable. If you get a no answer the first time, then call MS back and try again--as many times as is necessary. I suspect that the same scenario will play out if your friend's DVD is 64-bit. Eventually, MS is going to have to develop a policy for dealing with cases where individual's to not get a Vista install DVD. As things stand, individuals with nothing but restore partitions have to do marginally OK things in order to have the same rights as those who receive install DVDs--which is becoming a thing of the past.