Dell Computer recovery disc

[johnans]

I have a Dell computer with operating system windows xp on a recovery partition Hard Drive, it all works fine< Until a friend gives a me trial with a Vista disc he loads it in on the main partition of hard drive everything works fine, but now I cannot return back, to recover the Xp operating system using the Ctrl & F11 keys during computer booting up.
For some reason Vista has locked me out from the recovery disc.
Can someone give me an answer to how I can return my computer back to XP Operating system

 

[TheOriginalTonkaToy]

Sounds like it may have overwritten the recovery partition or damaged the partition table in some way. You may have to contact Dell for physical recovery disks - if they will supply them.

 

[duckegg]

I've not yet used any of the manufacturers recovery, but when you say it's locked you out what kind of error message are you getting?

If you can't get your recovery partition to work then it would be a case of backing up all your data and reinstalling from scratch (using the XP & Driver CD's Dell supply) as you can't 'downgrade' from Vista to XP.

 

[Gees]

Sounds like it may have overwritten the recovery partition or damaged the partition table in some way. You may have to contact Dell for physical recovery disks - if they will supply them.

Almost certain

Just out of curiosity did you really want to slow your machine to a crawl with Vista ?

 

[johnans]

A big thank you to the original tonka toys, Duckegg and Gees for your help.

I have contacted Dell, they have been very helpful and sent me 4 Discs for free 2 Application, 1 drivers and utilities, 1 Xp operating System Disc

I am well pleased

Thank to you all again

 

[johnans]

Oh quick reply to Vista slowing my computer down.

Answer No - it actually it works faster, my computer has 2G memory P4 (2992 Mhz ) and responds quicker than with the Xp operating system, so Have just bought a Vista disc.