Here's my problem, Can you help?

-So, I have an older laptop that had vista installed in it.
-HD packed it in......
-Went and bought another HD and tried to install windows.
-Turns out my cd-drive will not read(boot) the vista disks(made a few different disk on different brands of dvd's, nothing works) I made up.
-My desktop will however, read them just fine so I know its a good bootable disk.
-----Also know a legit copy of vista will work as the guy at the PC shop stuck his in and it booted... then said something rediculous like "if you want me to go any further, ima gonna have to charge you" I said heck no, and took my lappy to go.
-Me, bieng the cheapo I am, decided I was going to buy a USB HD enclouser and install windows vista to my lappy hd using the enlouser thru my desktop pc.
-This however did not go as planned, as the vista instillation will not allow me to install windows thru a USB'ed HD.

So.....

I am now at a point were I dont much care what operating system I have on my lappy, I just want to be able to use it again.

My question to you.
Is there a way that I can basicly clone my entire pc(windows 7) and put it on the hd(thru the HD caddy) in such a way that I can then take it out of the caddy and put it in the lappy, fire it up and essentially just have an exact clone of my desktop? My thinking here, is then I can use the recovery disk that came with my desktop to then revert my lappy to a "clean install" of windows 7?

Thanks in advance for all the help,
If you need anymore info, Ask away

Thanks,
-Chris

Well, thanks for the replies guys.

After a little trial and error, I got windows on the lappy.

Ended up using an older desktop pc I have had in the basement for a while. Needed a new HD as well, but just bought a new desktop with that one crapped out.
So, dusted it off, pulled the crap 3.5 HD out of it, and hooked up the 2.5 sata for the lappy to it.
Used the desktop's cd/dvd drive to load/install windows, and when it did it's restart before the "configure computer" part, I unplugged the power to the desktop PC before It could boot up and install the desktops's drivers.
After it was unplugged, I took the 2.5 outta the desktop and installed it in the lappy. Booted up the lappy and it "configured pc"(installed all the drivers for the lappy.) All is good now. Windows runs flawlessly.

Now, I have a unused HD caddy that I will find a drive for and start cloning 1-2 a week so this whole thing dosesnt happen again

Thanks for the help!!

-Chris

EDIT
I should add that this was the 2nd attempt at using the desktop to install windows.
First go around, as Mark Phelps mentioned, I let windows run its full course on the desktop and when I try the HD into the laptop it would not boot(installed all the desktop drivers). Thats when i had the bright idea to run it a secound time and unplug and PC before it got to that point. Low and behold, IT WORKED!.