How can I restore my Acer Aspire One XP? ...

I've had it maybe 18 months. We got the 8.9" model w/ XP, 120GB HD and 1GB of RAM. I keep the firewall on, and careful, and run AVG. But as was inevitable, the kids got something on there that managed to mess it up. Now I can't get it to see any WiFi network and when it boots Windows complains about missing two DLLs that I've never heard of before. Google turns up nothing on them.

What I think I would like to do is restore Windows XP to its original state, but of course there's no Windows media and no optical drive. I could boot Ubuntu on a flash drive and install from there, but if not too much trouble/expense I would like to get XP back on there.

Is there a hidden partition or something like that with XP on it? Any other tips, words of wisdom, or links to steps?

Thanks VERY much in advance!

Chris

 

Do you have the the Acer eRecovery Management software installed (I think it should be there by default in the Acer supplied XP edition). From the manual "You may also launch Acer eRecovery Management by running the program from the Acer Empowering Technology program group in the Start menu,". This appears to allow you to recover to the factory state. I haven't used it myself. There is supposed to be a hidden partition. Maybe someone who has tried it can comment further.