T-6836 System Recovey discs

Hi,

I just bought a T-6836 which I am going to downgrade to XP64 from Vista.
Gateway documentation on how to create recovery discs and restore to factory default is driving me nuts.

1. The doc talks about being prompted on first bootup to create the discs, but this did not happen;

2. it refers to creation under XP, not Vista, which is supposed to create SYSTEM recovery disc

3. No such thing is available in the Recovery Center,the only option is to create APPLICATION AND DRIVER recovery disc.

4. The laptop came with a Windows Vista 64/32 SP1

5. Neither the OS disc nor the apps/drivers recovery disc recreate the recovery partition on the HD, they just install the sware. I need to recreate that partition to reach factory default.

6. There are instructions on booting with the SYSTEM recovery disc and recreating the factory default, but without instructions how to create that system recovery disc (as I said above), they are useless.

Does anybody know what's the heck is going on here?

Thanks.
FP

 

Further on this: I found a document on their site which provides instructions on how to create factory recovery discs (OS+Apps+recreate recovery partition) on a Vista system. However, it refers to an option in Recovery Center which does not come up in my system!!!!

I tried to reach Gateway by phone, but their atomated system asks for a serial # which is incapable to understand it, no matter how slowly and clearly I speak, so there is no way to get them on a phone.

Their chat option forces you to register your computer which I am not eady to do yet.

I sent them an email, but why do I suspect it'll take them forever to reply, if at all.

 

Incidentally, can I change the letter of the recovery partition? Will it still work?