fixing virus killed oem pc

my computer got infected with a virus that caused my logon to loop...i'll explain. i would start my computer, logon window came up, i logged on, then it would spontaneously log me off and shutdown windows before windows could fully come all the way up. thus i couldn't even get windows up to run my antivirus to clean it off.
next i used my other computer to download a utility to wipe my harddrive. successfully wiped it. my oem recovery disk however won't boot from cdrom drive or dvd/rw drive. i've since found an old xandros desktop version 3 standard os cd that i now have an os on my killed computer. i don't like it. i want my winxppro from my recovery cd to return my computer to original purchased condition. so here i am...i can take apart pc's and scavenge others to make another, but software and dos i'm not that good with unless i have very detailed step by step instruction. i need to know how to get my winxp into my killed computer and then be able to use the recovery disk in some way to restore my computer to original condition. my gateway computer has 80gig hard drive pentium 4 processor dvd/rw drive cd/rom drive geforce 7600 graphics card two 512ddr ram cards and a frustrated owner.

 

cd rom is set in bios to run first

i only have one recovery disk in my set, there is no disc two, secondly my cdrom is the first to boot up however the disk doesn't start up to begin process, i can read everything on the disk and see all the files etc. but is doesn't autostart like you might expect. cd rom does read properly but i just don't think that since i wiped my computer that it will recognize windows recovery without a windows os to begin operation. i've tried booting dvd/rom first as well. i don't think the disk is the problem or that cd rom is problem because i used that same cdrom drive to install a very old copy of xandros os and it auto started fine. this is why i would like to take the files i need off the recovery disk and create a new boot up installer. i just need really detailed step by step to help me thru the process. keeping in mind that on this computer, i have xandros desktop and it's burn program the xandros file manager. i would need to copy the files into a file then burn them to cd. i can make a copy of the files i need by simple copy and paste, but then to burn them i need to remove the recovery cd and put in my burn media. pain in the butt yes, but i can do this, just need to know which files, how to arrange on cd etc...

 

Not sure if it would help but have you looked here?

Seriously though you should never have wiped your hard disk without ensuring you had a recovery procedure in place. If you do manage to restore the system to your requirements make a backup.

 

I have 2 thoughts that might be worth a try. First Click on Start, Run and type in Setup.exe to see if that gets it going. The 2nd is open my computer then open the CD drive with your recovery disc. Then double click on it and look at the files on the disc. If you see something like Autorun or Setup try clicking on one of those and see if it solves your problem.

 

Since the OP now has a linux OS start->run is a non starter and any windows executable won't work either.