XPS 15 L502X Hard Drive Problems and Boot Up/OS Problem

Hi all,

Ive had my Dell XPS 15 L502 X for a while now and, yes just after the warranty expired, the hard drive broke. When i say broke, I mean it totally failed. To detail the problem, having turned on the laptop, it took and age to load. When it did, it was slow and took ages to access any programs. If i tried to access the internet via either Mozilla or IE8, the computer crashed and froze requiring me to switch it off by the button. On restart i had the usual "Windows didnt shut down properly" prompt and I went to Safe mode and checked everything. No software issues. I rebooted and did the diagnostic PAS check and was told (having checked the code on Dell Site) that the hard drive has irreversibly crashed.

After checking the internet I found i needed to replace my hard drive (like for like I bought a 750gb SATA hard drive, same as the one in the laptop). I then read up on the internet (including Dell and Windows) on how to change the hard drive, including the IMPORTANT  Back Up and Restore Section.

I went to Back Up and Restore and clicked "Create System Image". I followed the wizard and, attaching a clean, formatted External Hard Drive, selected this to create the system image. Sadly, the laptop would not create a system image. Each time i retried i got a "The system cannot find the path due to error 0x80070003. So i used a second EHD that was formatted and clean and the same message appeared. So i tried the " Create a System Repair Disk" and happily created a Disk which worked.

Please understand, i could not access the internet on the broken laptop to download any "fix it" tools for this problem. I couldnt access the internet to download any cloned tools either to copy my Microsoft Windows 7 Home premium 64 bit Service Pack One.

This is where the IT knowledge in me fails and need help and guidance.

I swapped out the bad HD for the new one and switched it on. I got the Boot Menu with the options available. Now Im stuck. I clicked on Diagnostics and the computer conducted its PSA diagnostics and said the laptop is working perfect. It then restarted the laptop (after i pressed the relevant prompts) and it then says on the screen "Operating system not found". As i bought this off the Dell Website, I have no Win 7 HE Serv Pack 1.

What do I do next?

(I have a Dell Inspiron Notebook that Im using to type this. Can i attach my External Hard Drive to this one, Download Win 7 Home Ed Serv Pack 1 through this to it, connect it to the XPS and some how reboot the XPS this way?

Thanks