I installed Ubuntu 9.10 to replace windows XP, my hard drive crashed

[Tom H]

>> I have 512mb of ram and 100gb of harddrive, I tried to reinstall windows
>> XP with my recovery discs but it will not run, I get the error message
>> "invalid partition table". I would prefer running Ubuntu but if I can't
>> I need this cpu for the basic use. Can anyone help me? bob

> If you installed Ubuntu (or any *nix) on a disk you will not be
> able to return to XP with a recovery disk.

For the record, I think that there is a definition difference here
about recovery.

Every box that seen for a long time is sold either with recovery DVDs
or with a "hidden" partition to create recovery DVDs that re-create
both the hidden partition and the WIndows original install.