Yes, I'm very aware of the cut off. Thanks.
As it turns out even though I have 2 different Recovery Disks which I made from the laptop, neither will start the recovery process. Once attempted I get the message that this is "not the correct DVD." Same thing happens with my Lenovo Startup & System Repair disk that I had made from the laptop. Also, I have an image backup labeled as a .vhd file, however, when my Recovery Disk accesses the external drive for backup, after a few minutes the message "Cannot find the backup files." There are several backups on this external drive, however, and the .vhd file is a few layers deep.
Suggestions?