What does the boot from the Vista Recovery discs do to the files on the
HD?
My main reason for not contacting the makers first thing is, as I've
learned
the hard way, the eagerness of some makers to
A)hire people who don't know anything
b)suggest or perform the reformat and reinstall option, wiping everything
from the HD with a "sorry, nothing could be done" (=I couldn't be arsed
doing
it)

It's sounds like you have a pre-installed OS and a hidden partition for
doing a System Recovery. Is that correct? These computers don't come with
a Vista DVD. The System Recovery disks are essentially the same as the
hidden partition and if you used them to reinstall your OS you will destroy
all data on the disk. If you have data you might be able to recover it
creating and booting a Bart PE rescue CD. Part PE is basically XP on a CD.
This is a good way to recover data from an XP partition, but I haven't tried
it with Vista.