Need uber help with restoring Windows XP

just recently after fixing my roomates built computer, my friend installed a new OS (vista i believe) and everything worked perfect for a few days. after playing games online for a while the computer just started to crash. i have just left it here for a few weeks and have tried to do the factory reset. its running and has been running all night but is stuck on "Checking file system on C: The volume is clean. windows has finished checking the disk. !! 0x0000034 !! 1023/98324 (axaltocm.dll)"
i have tried hard booting the computer due to it being stuck on here (fully aware that thats def. not a good thing to do). i have restarted the restore and its still stuck. any suggestions? would the hard drive just need to be replaced?? the specs that i can find on the comp is that it is a msi mother board with intercooling, 500 gb western digital caviar blue hard drive, and nvidia dual graphics.
also i am a little worried about the OS that my friend put on. i dont know if he has ever used that disk on any other computer and im wondering that if he did that they had conflicting issues with updates for vista.
please help asap.
 
It sounds as if you are trying to use a recovery disc which was created for another computer. I could be wrong but, I do not believe you can do that. Give the model number of the computer you are working on. Perhaps it has a recovery option built in.
 
well thats the thing. the computer has all different parts i believe. the mother board is a msi ms-7374 ver 1.2 with socket am2. and all the other specs that i know are already listed on the thread
 
I believe you will need an unused product key code. Alternatively, you can contact Microsoft Support explaining that you had to replace the monbo. They are very likely to give you a new key.

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