Windows 7 Toshiba Satellite

This has no doubt been asked countless times but I feel I have no option but to ask again. So, I upgraded my hard drive and installed Windows 7 no problem. Well I thought it was no problem but my product key (activation key? I've read both so many times they've totally lost meaning) was denied. Even though it's the same one I used to activate the original hard drive (which I'm using at the moment). I tried to speak with Microsoft support and they were as much use as a one armed man in a Mexican wave ("I've attempted slui.exe 4 but I get no option to activate by phone, not that it would make a difference as I have no phone regardless" with a reply of "This is no problem, I'll give you the number and you can call the help desk") I then mooched around a little more and was informed if I used the Toshiba recovery discs I shouldn't have a problem activating Windows on the new hard drive (due to Windows being pre-installed on the old hard drive and this is where the problem lies) I then realised my husband had misplaced them "no problem" I thought, "I can just make some more". Naturally, I got an error on every make of disc I have available (4 different manufacturers in total). I was THEN told I could just recover to a virtual drive, copy these files to an external HDD and burn them from there. Which probably would have been fine until I noticed that all of them have 000, 001 etc file extensions and literally no software sees them as .ISOs that can be copied (the one that did would only allow one file although the folder has at least 4 of these files in them). What do? Will using the recovery discs even help my Windows activation issue? If so, is there a way of merging these files and burning them to disc? Someone please help. You deserve extra thanks for reading through all of this btw.