Cannot access recovery partition

Im trying to restore an HP a450n to factory condition. Problem is that my younger bro had previously tried a beta version of Vista on it (which has now expired) and system recovery does not seem to work. I have checked the drive with my other pc and could see that the partition was there. This pc will post and goes to the OS selection screen.

Microsoft Windows Xp Home Edition
Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition
Microsoft Windows Recovery Console

The first selection come back with the hal.dll missing and asks for it to be replaced.
The second gives a disk configuration error and says it cannot read from the selected boot disk.
I can access the recovery Console and can get the command prompt but what can i do there?
I just want to restore this pc. nothing needs to be saved. i hate to spend the money on discs when the info is right there.

 

I'm no expert with recovery partitions gone bad... if you boot into the recovery console, can you browse to the HP recovery partition? If so, maybe there's a setup.exe file or something similar you can launch. If not, HP usually offers recovery CDs to their customers for a minimal fee. A friend of mine was in a similar situation last year. He contacted HP thru their web site and was able to get a set of recovery discs and only paid shipping. He received them 3 days later and it only cost about $30. Here's a link that may help:
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/...261&lc=en&cc=us&dlc=en&product=392522&lang=en
The 3rd and 4th options are probably the most relevant....