How to recover a computer from an external hard drive

[celeste-53]

I am trying to do a full recovery on a lap top. The cd is not working on the lap top. I have the recovery disks and have copied them to an extenal hard drive. Is there a way to start the recovery from a hard drive connected externally by usb to another computer. When I open the folder there are a lot of files and needless to say no auto start happens on its own. thanks oh i am running vista
Celeste

 

[PhilFrisbie]

It would be easiest to purchase or borrow an external CD/DVD drive and boot the recovery disc from that.