Trying to restore a laptop

Hi, I am trying to restore someones laptop to its factory settings. It has a healthy recovery partition. Unfortunately being a complete novice, he never created any recovery discs. The machine has had problems. He had a rogue scareware virus recently but got rid by running system restore. The machine also more recently would not boot in any mode. I downloaded a repair disc which allowed me to run system restore. icould only go back 3 weeks, as there were no other restore points
I believe the machine is clean ( ran MBAM, kaspersky and avira rescue discs , and HMP )
So heres my question, to restore the pc or create any discs it clearly states on boot that you must used the advanced menu ( f 8 key ) before windows loads.
I get the advanced menu, but there is absolutely no option to recover. It's just not there. I see all the usuals, safe mode last kown good config etc
Has anyone heard of a virus that deletes the option to recover a machine from the advanced menu ?
Many thanks

 

Who is the manufacturer of the PC? What is the Operating System?

 

Hi the pc is a fujitsu siemens, Amilo Li 2727, with Vista basic. There is a pop up after booting that says, to restore the pc or create a 'one off' recovery disc/s enter the advanced menu ( f 8 ) and choose repair etc. I think creating the discs disables the pop up ( recinfo.exe, in msconfig start up )
The discs have never been made. Fujitsu sell them for 36 euro's.
I have also posted on the Fujitsu forum. The option to repair/recover simply does not exist where it should. Ihave tried every other f key and can find no recovery option
One other thing is in the computersproperties it says the OS is Vista Basic ( recovered ) Is that normal, why does it say ( recovered )

EDIT
It just occured to me, the pop up about recovery did not appear until I ticked the recinfo.exe box in msconfig, and rebooted.However the owner said he got the pop up every time he booted prior to the crash. Also the taskmanager seemed damaged.It opened but had hardly any info on it and the top part was blank
I dont know what caused the pc to become unbootable, but HMP found one malware ( i think it was in the IE 5 content folder ) and removed it