Here's the link explaining the recovery partition on your T42 and also how to order a recovery CD/DVD:
http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/si...id=MIGR-4M7HWZ
I agree with other posters above - the recovery partition on your hard drive is very secure and you should be able to recover using that alone. On a T42, press the blue "IBM Access" button at startup and it should take you to a screen where you can re-load.