seektruthnow :
I am sure you are correct. Installing w 7 involves a complete format. Oh well. Expensive lesson. I need to keep the netbook pretty trim so it is as fast as it can be. Guess I'll delete Microsoft word. Thanks for the comment.
well the recovery will be on a diffrent partiton not on C, if you only formatted C without deleting the partition you can still access the
recovery partition. to see if its there do the following
right click on my computer and go to manage
then storage devices
the disk managment
see if there is a hidden partition called (eisa) that's the recovery one, usualy you cant delete it unless u boot with a seperate os disc
other than that just use an external cd drive or buy one or borrow one from a friend or neighbor or just a random guy and use it
to install xp back on "using an oem xp disk for either home edition or pro"
or keep windows 7, did you know windows 7 is like xp in the background? anything that works with xp will work with 7!!! its awsome
just give it few weeks to get used to it. when xp was released nobody liked it in the first 1 year..look now everyone is in love with it