Problem Installing Xp on my Laptop

Hi Guys,
I have A laptop (HP Pavilion DV6565us) which came with a pre-installed Vista Basic. I Gave this Laptop to my brother who installed a Windows 7 ultimate onto it. Later, I asked him 2 install Windows Xp as I am more comfortable using an XP. He used the normal procedure i.e, Putting in an XP cd to boot and install it after formatting the HD. but according to him, he messed up things like formatting the Entire drive using DOS. So as of now, my Laptop doesn't have any OS.
I read in one of the forums that I Should try to install Something like Ubuntu first then try installing XP. But the thing is, when I start the installation,I think i have to follow some wizard (7 steps). Somehow, i m just not able to enter any characters and so i cannot proceed with my installation.
I will really appreciate it if anybody could help me with this
.