Trouble trying to factory reset from recovery (D:) drive

Hey,
I'm in a bit of a predicament. The Vista cd key on the bottom of the laptop has, of course, worn away and is mostly unreadable at this point and it was never written down. Also, there were never any recovery DVDs burned and I am no longer able to boot into windows so burning them now is not an option.
I've tried to use the recovery D: drive to do a factory reset/re-install of Vista. It seems to work most of the way- it does the step where it is formatting the C: drive, and copying files. It then reboots and it sort of looks like it is starting to re-install Vista but then at some point I get an error along the lines of "the NLS files are missing". So it seems like the recovery drive isn't quite right.
My first thought was to see if HP still provided recovery DVDs for a small fee, but of course they seem to be discontinued (laptop is a Pavilion dv4-1435dx with Vista premium home 64-bit).
It seems like my 3 options going forward are:
1) pay upwards of $100 for a new copy of Vista (really makes me angry that I would be buying something I already bought...)
2) try to buy a recovery disk from a 3rd party retailer (I'm afraid to do this as some of them seem to suggest I would need my own cd key at some point, which again is not readable off the bottom of the laptop).
3) pray that there is some way to get the recovery D: drive to work as it should.
I'm hoping someone here can help me persue option 3). I don't understand why the D: partition isn't working as it should- I mean, it's there to do exactly what I am trying to get it to do! Is it common for the D: partition to just not work? If so, it seems like that and the combination of easily worn cd keys on the bottom of laptops is a pretty shoddy product from HP...
If 3) is a no go, does anyone have experience with 3rd party recovery discs? Do they require a cd key to be input even if they are being used on a laptop that has one of these pre-installed licenses and are just doing a factory reset?
Thanks for any and all help!

I've just been assured by a rep at their website that this will work for me:
http://www.computersurgeons.com/p-17082-recovery-kit-578918-001-for-hp-model-number-dv4-1435dx.aspx
They claim that the cd key will be automatically read from the MOBO so I will not have to manually type it in during installation.
I guess ~$30 is the price I will pay for not having recovery discs burnt when I still had access to windows.

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WOW, thanks Macius for that great, full and thorough reply...cheers mate
I suspected I didn't have a recovery partition - so thanks for confirming it as I planned to risk it and try! I guess it doesn't really matter why, and it would be futile to go and blame the re-seller or Toshiba at this late stage in the game in hopes they would help...
Yeah, I just went to Microsoft Software Recovery hoping to download Win 7 OS and create a recovery disk but of course Microsoft would NOT allow it due to it being software that was pre-installed on the device blah blah blah (see error image)
And I didn't bother back then in 2009 to create recovery media as you wisely descibed, mostly due to laziness and mentally putting it in the 'too hard basket'...I didn't really understand it - or much about computers at the time.
Re - your Option #2 - thanks for confirming Toshiba drivers. I could/can do this - but don't really want to buy something I already have, perhaps I'll check out ebay or see if a friend has a disk
Re - your Option #1 - I'm currently based in Vietnam and wont be back in Oz till late in the year, so will see if I can find a reliable Toshiba service provider here - but wont hold me breath on this one
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[SOLVED] can't boot from ssd after "reset" from recovery usb flash drive

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Trouble trying to factory reset from recovery (D:) drive

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