How do I install windows vista using my recovery drive. I bought a used laptop and I don't have windows CD ?

To my knowledge WMP only catalogs and plays music. It knows where to go find your music when you want it. Whenever I rip a cd, with WMP, it does make a file in my music folder. I would right click on an album in WMP and left click on open folder location to see what is going on. What format did you rip the cd's with in WMP? itunes will accept an mp3 format and will automatically convert a wma format to either aac or mp3 (you can set which one).
This video describes how to install Windows 7 from a USB thumb drive.Rip DVD Movies To Your iPod Using Free Software.
I've tried importing the Music folder (on vista) but it leaves about a third of my songs out compared to what's on media player. I think I only burned some of my CD's straight onto Windows Media Player, so they didn't get registered in my Music folder and are not being picked up by iTunes.
Anyone know how I can recover the music? Or how to transfer to iTunes straight from Windows Media Player?
Input Formats: MPG, MPEG, MPEG2, VOB, MP4, M4V, RM, SWF, RMVB, WMV, ASF, TS, MKV, AVI, 3GP, FLV, MPV, MOD, TOD, MP3, MP2, AAC, AC3, WAV, MID, MIDI, WMA, M4A, RA, RAM etc..Flash Video Converter can convert Flv to AVI, MP4, MPEG, WMV, MP3 and 3GP.
Output Formats: MP4, H.264, AVI, MP3, WMV, WMA, FLV, MKV, MPEG-1, MPEG-2, 3GP, 3GPP, VOB, DivX, Mov, RM, RMVB, M4A, AAC, WAV, OGG, RA etc..
It also has strong editing functions of video effecting, video trimming, video cropping, video joinning.
I think this method would also work to install Vista from your 500GB USB drive
I personally use AVS Video Converter for all my video conversion. It will convert from just about any format to just about any format. I used it to convert all my DVD rips from .avi to .mp4's for my iPod. It has full Apple TV support so it can convert your files for you with ease.
Are you sure you can convert dvd to mp4 video with this program?
Convert Video between Almost Any Formats:
HD Video (inc. AVCHD, MPEG-2 HD and WMV HD), TOD, MOD, M2TS, AVI (DivX, Xvid, etc.), MP4 (inc. Sony PSP and Apple iPod), WMV, 3GP, QuickTime (MOV, QT), SWF, DVD, VOB, VRO, MPEG-1, 2, 4, H.263, H.264, Real Video, DVR-MS, MKV, FLV etc
I recommend you to use Tipard Video Converter. It supports the mutual conversion between all the video formats.
Some newer computers allow a USB drive to be the first boot device. If yours does, you can boot Vista from it.
To see if you can do it you must enter the BIOS and see what your options are. They are usually under a section call "advanced settings" or something similar. Check to see if USB drive is an option for the first boot device.