Vista - Complete PC Restore on Preinstalled (OEM) Vista Ultimate

BACKGROUND :
HP Pavillion Laptop preinstalled with Vista Ulitmate (OEM). Last week, my
hard disk crashed and it was replaced. Naturally the laptop came back with a
factory installation of the OS. In Oct, I did a complete PC back to an
external hard drive (thank goodness) before it crashed. I now want to restore
by hard disk image from the backup.

The help documentations for Complete PC Restore says that if I use a
pre-installed version of Windows, I have to reboot the PC and tap F8. This
brings me to the "Recovery Enviroment" to which I should subsequently select
"Repair Your Computer". I followed this instructions to the letter. Windows
detected my backup set. However as I proceed, I keep getting an error with
the message like : Windows needs to reformat and repartition my hard disk but
I booted from the hard disk. It then says that I should reboot from a CD/ DVD
and I cannot proceed with the Restore.

The only other bootable CD/ DVD i have is the Recovery disks (set of 2) that
I created from Windows (Start | All Programs | Maintenance | Create Recovery
Disk). I tried this but it does not have the software components needed for
the "Complete PC Recovery". All it does is help me do a factory install. It
seems like the Complete PC Backup and Restore in OEM Vista Ultimate does not
work. Does anyone know if I can create a bootable DVD with "Complete PC
Restore" option. I checked the control panel and theres nothing. Perhaps
theres a command line option or something ? As far as I know all 3rd party
disk image backup and Restore products allows us to create a bootable disk
(CD or DVD) to recover. In Windows Backup and Restore, shouldn't there be an
option for me to create a bootable "Complete PC Restore" DVD or CD to enable
us to recover ?

I purchased Ultimate mainly for this feature.

Thanks & Regards
--
Gregory Sebastian