Is recovery disk enough to install OS on a new HD?

[comp-illiterate]

Recently bought a new HD, a WD Caviar Black 1TB. I bought my comp with Vista already installed. When I tried to reformat the HD I will be replacing I used the system recovery disks. Not sure if they actually reinstalled Vista or erased everything but Vista.

Are they enough to install an OS on my new hard drive?

[Allan]

No, they are tied to the specific hardware on the other computer. You need to purchase a new copy of an OS.

[comp-illiterate]

What? You mean I have to buy more stuff? I thought I paid for the OS when I bought my computer. Why should I have to buy it again? This just doesn't seem fair.

[Allan]

I'm sorry - perhaps I misunderstood. Are you replacing just the hd in the original computer? If so then you're fine. And I apologize for causing confusion. For some reason I thought this was a second computer.

[Geek-9pm]

What version of Vista?
What make of computer?
Some versions of Vista will require you to activate Vista again when put on a new HDD, even in the same computer.
But this should not cause any problem.

[Allan]

Don't worry about the above post - that's more than you need to worry about. If it's on the original computer you should be fine.

[comp-illiterate]

It's okay, I should have been more specific. My current HD is faulty (I still see the Microsoft error message that I shoved in the corner). I'm replacing it with a new one.

Gateway DX4200-09
Vista Home Premium 64

So how do I go about this? Install the new HD, then somehow transfer Vista to the new HD from my old one? Is this like starting fresh or will all the files I have on the faulty one be transferred as well? Do I have to dig out the recovery disks again?

[Allan]

Let's start at the top. What's wrong with the original disk?

[comp-illiterate]

As you can see, I depend on this site heavily. 

http://www.computerhope.com/forum/index.php/topic,116101.0.html

[Allan]

Can you boot to the original drive? If not, then you have no choice but to start from scratch.

[comp-illiterate]

I guess I wont know until I try. Can't I choose what to boot in the BIOS menu?

[BC_Programmer]

Is recovery disk enough to install OS on a new HD?

Yes.

[comp-illiterate]

Okay, I'll let you all know how it goes.

[comp-illiterate]

Sadly it didn't go well. When I installed the new HD, the first thing that showed up after the gateway logo F2 bios menu F10 Boot Menu screen was the PXE screen, Pre-boot Execution Environment. After it checked something it said it couldn't find the media and said to insert it into a boot drive followed by a prompt to press any key. When any key was pressed it started over again searching for whatever. I can't seem to get past this screen.

And just to be clear. I need to install the new HD, power cable and sata cable of course, start up, and use the recovery disk to install Vista?

[BC_Programmer]

You have to boot to the recovery disk. That is not happening. Double-check the Boot order.