My daughter bought her two nephews a laptop last August, a Dell Inspiron 1545. She set it up for them, and burned a recovery disk at that time. She handed the recovery disk to her sister, our other daughter, for safe keeping.

Now, nine months later, the laptop will not boot. The exact details on that are a bit fuzzy--they live 3500 miles away. It seems that my younger daughter hid the recovery disk in such a safe place that it cannot be found. The two boys, ages ten and eleven, are no real help.

The laptop has two months remaining on the warranty, so there might be hope.

I have the Service Tag: 4Y4J5N1. Will a recovery disk from another system work on their laptop?

Where should I start in trying to rescue their laptop?