E & S series ThinkCentre Desktops

[#1]

I recently made a partition for windows 7 and I wanted to reinstall windows xp using the recovery partition (I checked that it's there by using a partition manager).  I made sure everything was perfect, I got rid of the dual boot screen, I deleted the windows 7 partition.  There is a message when I press F11, and it tells me to press Esc to enter the recovery utility, but after I press it startup resumes, and nothing happens.  Once or twice I enter a gray screen for less than a second but I don't know whether that has anything to do with the recovery partition.  I've been trying to look for solutions for a very long time, so any help would be appreciated.

[#2]

It's possible that the recovery partition got screwed up.  In which case you could image and copy the recovery partition from another machine (of the same type), or you'd have to build it up from scratch; IE:  format and install the drivers manually.

G-Parted is a free linux based software that will allow you to copy partitions or clone HDDs.  I've used that many times to grab recovery partitions and place them on other HDDs to recover from.  Very useful tool!