xp pro frustrated

system restore unable to protect your computer,
please restart and try agian. System services is not there is the only answer to buy a recovery disc for windows XP pro, because I can not locate the operating system cd for this labtop I own. Did I mention how much I am beging to hate microsoft and its instability. Also I beleive if I can system restore to an earlier time like I was able to in the past alot of my problems will disapear.
JoeO