Inspiron 1300 laptop - Whats happened to my DVD and recovery partitions?

I have my Dell Inspiron 1300 laptop - it's served me well for several years, but now ---

I can't see the recovery partitions anymore! - and no Windows XP disk supplied.

My DVD/CDROM drive will only read audio CD's now - no longer the DVD's.

And all this has happened since I tried sharing the DVD drive with my desktop over a LAN.

Is this normal?

How do I restore my system if I want to?

Help is needed, Thanks

David E.

PS. and my registration on the Dell communities which was set up when I bought my computer from Dell had gone as well!