It sounds as if he may have deleted the recovery partition on the laptop when he installed XP since you do not have the "Repair..." option.
Did your computer come with any Vista recovery disks by chance?
If not, then you might see if you can download a recovery disk copy from Gateway here:
gateway recovery cd disk - CD & Download Versions Available
If not, then you might contact Gateway to see if you can order a replacement recovery CD/DVD since you still have your product key number for Vista on the bottom of the laptop. You may be able to get it at a low price.