Missing Operating Systems

I had a virus on my computer that I was unable to delete. Since I have been having problems with this computer I decided to go ahead and do a recovery. This is a HP computer. I did the recovery. When i purchased the computer it came with windows XP and a cd to upgrade to Vista. I did not upgrade at the time that they sent me the disk but I thought since i was reformating anyway i might as well do it now. I didn't have any problem with the recovery nor did I have any problems installing Vista, however while Vista was running it came up with a blue screen that read "Windows has encountered a problem has been shut down. When I tried to restart the computer I get the start up screen and then I get and error message that says the Operating System is missing. Can anyone help me? I called HP and they wouldn't help me without charging me 150.00. Please help me if you can. Thank you.

Hello,

Use the CD install to preform a destructive recovery of Vista.

How do i perform a destructive recovery. When i tried to restart the computer it came up and asked if i wanted to boot up from a cd. I hit enter and it reinstalled windows. But I don't think I am installing it on the correct partition. Everytime I restart the computer it asks the same question now and if i let it go then it will go to a screen that has options on it. I can start windows Vista in safe mode or regaular mode however i don't know what to do with it once i have it started to fix the problem. This is how is starts every time and if i don't have the cd in the drive it states that its missing the Operating system.

Hello,

Let's try to use the recovery partition. At boot up, keep tapping the F11 key, see if a new screen appears and prompts you for a recovery.