OK. Well the files that are locked by Windows you needn't be too bothered about, providing you don't expect to ever want that installation bootable again. You can use e.g. RoboCopy (or even XCopy) with appropriate switches to copy all the accessible files onto another disk.
Alternatively, if you want the ability to return to your previous install if required, I'd recommend you to get Acronis TrueImage. Take a full backup image of your system, verify it, then only reformat/reinstall your laptop. Then install Acronis again, which will allow you to mount the backup image as a drive on your newly installed PC, allowing you to manually copy over whatever you want.
Aside: In some instances recently I've when recovering/reinstalling a PC with many bookmarks, emails, connection entries and so on, used the File and Settings Transfer wizard to transfer all that with less hassle. The biggest problem in general with the idea of using the wizad of course is that you need 2 pc's to use it, which is not the case wehn upgrading one machine. However what I've now successfully done a couple of times to get around this problem is effectively to do the process twice -- You do it once onto a clean XP install Virtual Machine running on VMWare I've got on hand for just this type of event (not even activated or anything), then, I reinstall the machine actually being cleaned up, after which I again use the File and Settings transfer wizard this time going from the VM to the now cleaned up machine. It's a little bit of hassle (but seems less hassle than trying to manually migrate all user settings and files particularly if they're non-trivial as you can basically set it off to go and have a cup of coffee while the machine works.)
Aside2: VMWare actually has a tool that can convert a physical machine into a virtual machine. This in theory would allow one to take an "image" of the machine, as a VM, then boot the VM, and directly transfer the files and settings from the "old" PC now in the VM, to the new freshly installed physical PC. However, my one attempt at this was scuppered by Windows activation. Very very annoying.
