Vaio Rocovery created a single ISO 5,344,117KB in size.
I setup a DVD+R DL drive and everything went smothly. I'm happy to report that this has the capability to create a fake drive with various fake media discs and does indeed fool the Vaio software into creating an ISO to the internal hard drive. After trying a couple of virtual CD/DVD/BD-ROM/HD-DVD tools I took the advice of TofuTurkey (cheers fella) in the vaio owners thread and tried Virtual CD. The main issue (i think) is with Vaio Recovery Center itself, if you try to create the recovery disk the software will complain that no dvd writer can be found.
I know that it's probably gonna be simpler to just create a bootable USB key/stick and copy the relevant drivers to it and use that (something I'll be doing to get rid of all the crapware sony have preinstalled) but I like having the security of an additional backup solution just in case I royally balls it up. Installing Win 7 from a USB stick is fairly well documented on the web but the problem above isn't, certainly not for the VPC Z anyway. I finally got my VPC Z with HDD/no DVD today and I thought I'd start up a thread on the subject for those like me who once receiving their Z will be trying to use Vaio Recovery Center to create recovery disks without using a DVD Writer.
Sony :: VAIO VPC Z HDD Model Recovery Disk Without DVD Writer Apr 27, 2010