Didn't use recovery partition - need help..

[Justin Firedog]

This was accidently posted in the general forum as well, sorry.

So, I didn't use the system restore partition when reinstalling windows; is there a way to still access that partition to reinstall it to factory settings as opposed to a clean install without any bundled software? Pressing f10 during the boot does nothing; just boots it into the freshly installed copy of windows.

I'm considering using a boot cd to access the contents of the partition and copying them over to an external but even then the creation of a bootable windows DVD seems daunting.

Please tell me I'm not screwed and quickly; the customer is becomming more irrate every day..

Thanks, Justin