Not sure why everyone thinks it's weird or unfortunate that there are are no discs. It would be very rare to get an XP disc with a laptop six years ago. You are prompted to create your own backup or recovery discs and often given blanks for this specific purpose.

As I said above, this information is stored on a hidden partition and can recover your laptop to factory settings without discs. This type of recovery will format AND install Windows AND install all the hardware drivers that were present when the machine was brand new. Obviously some of these should be updated once the recovery is done.