ervis,
Before formatting the hard drive you should have been able to use the HP Recovery Manager to create your recovery discs or perform a system recovery. This is provided the recovery partition wasn't already corrupt or damaged. If the "D:" HP Recovery partition is missing or damaged and you don't have a set of HP Recovery Discs, you will need to use the information in my previous post to get your computer up and running again.
The information in the document referred you to applies to several different "types" of installations;
Using ABRbeta is only needed if you have an active OEM factory SLP (system locked preactivated) installation of Windows. You use ABR to pull the factory key and certificate off the computer, to reuse it on the same computer with a clean Windows install.
If you are just installing Windows and are going to use the Windows 7 product key on the COA on the side of your computer, all you need to do is download the same version of Windows that your key is for and burn the ISO. Now install Windows answering or following all prompts as needed (except do not enter the Windows product at this time... it will be entered later). Once Windows has completely installed, enter the key and activate it. Your Windows 7 OA key should work on a SP1 install without issue.
The only thing I see that could mess things up, is the language of the install. If you are still having trouble activating Windows, please reference the ISO you download and a post a photo of your Windows COA
with the key erased or Xed out.
Please send KUDOs