Gingernut
Doesn't the laptop have a "restore" partition on the hard disk with all the original stuff? That is normal, so if you haven't formatted the entire disk then that will be there. Normally accessed at the initial boot screen. What kind of laptop is it, I'll see what I can find out if you want.
I would suggest using a windows disk and installing from there, however, as a "restore" function will wipe usually wipe out everything that is on the windows partition. Backing up your own PC windows and trying to install that won't work,
afaik, you need to do the "proper" install.