Ok so our laptop crashed and we put a new hard drive in it...?

it originally came with vista but we did not get a disk when we bought the laptop. so we tried to install xp just to see if we got it fixed and at a later date put vista back on it. when we got the laptop i did a back up (5 or 6 cds.) do i have to use vista to get that back up to work? when i try to use xp it loads the "xp" page and then it gives me the "blue page of doom" (cant read anything on it, it goes to fast, maybe something about hd drivers. the hd is bran new, no cds or n e thing with it) computer is a HP Pavilion Entertainment dv6700 Special Edition. If you have any answers i would appreciate them...Thanks for you help