needed CD to run recovery.? Since I don't have an installation CD (hard drive was running on Windows Vista) it seems like my only option besides spending more money is running linux for free. I plan on creating a USB boot drive, but I don't know if that will be a permanent solution instead of just a temporary fix.

I have more than one laptop that I'm looking to perform the same task with...only successfully. Let me know if there's any technical details I'm leaving out and thank in advance for your input.