help...cant do a system restore...

i have a gateway mx6955 notebook,windows XP SP2...about a month ago i developed problems with my cd/dvd player(spins too fast,clicks,etc..)as soon as i call Gateway to see wassup with troubleshooting it,a hole slew of things start happening(missing data,screen changes,desk top changes,etc...} VIRUS...i get a screen pops up ,'infected header or infected sumthing involving 'spam'"...my media center crashes(2-3X).things arent looking good. i try to do a system restore - nothing!!! i try to do a system recovery-nothing!!!when i press (F11)system recovery it gets to window then says,"system recovery not configured",i am to press ok and let windows fix it. well..after 204 seconds another window pops up and says i need too install a disk....of course my cd/dvd rom dont work but i order 1 from gateway anyway. it arrives , i follow instructions and still nothing...my hard drive says there are missing partitions in my hard drive....what do i do???

 

The obvious answer is if it is a virus post here: http://forums.majorgeeks.com/forumdisplay.php?f=35
If it is a hardware problem post here: http://forums.majorgeeks.com/forumdisplay.php?f=22
If it is a software problem post here: http://forums.majorgeeks.com/forumdisplay.php?f=21

But this is for programming so whats the point of posting here? Anyway, from experience when the HDD drive partitions were destroyed on one of my systems I had to wipe the lot, delete and recreate the partitions, reinstall the OS. And yes you loose all your data.