Same thing has happened to a customer. He bought it from somewhere and he is getting the same error message.
If you use recovery it says Restore Backup and when you click on it, it doesn't do anything.
I have cleaned the hard drive and installing windows XP on it as it has XP License on it. The main problem is getting the drivers as I cannot see the drivers anywhere.
I would suggest reinstalling XP on it should atleast run the machine.
J
June 2009