Theoretically, only 1 set of recovery disks is allowed. If you're
persistent, you will Google and discover this limitaion is for the lazy
people who don't learn, so you will discover you can make unlimited number
of backups but you're only allowed to use them on that particular machine
and I am not sure why would you need multiples when you can simply disk copy
to a 2nd set of DDVD's if you're so afraid of losing/damaging origianl
recovery disk set?

As of Harddisk recovery partition, no I don't think it's affected. I
personally don't care for either, as I am a "poweruser" and recover systems
without such silly recovery tricks.
I've a retail Vista disk, and used to own XP but lost; all I need is the
Windows disk + goto laptop manufactur3er's website to get latest drivers +
go BEYOND laptop system manufacturer to specific devices, e.g. I found a
proper Video driver for my GeForceGo7600 at NVidia website instead of HP
website who made my laptop.

HP site was wrong, I don't trust even people who made my computer because
they;re all humans and most ar eless educated than me, or spent fewer years
doing computers.
So i am one of those who dont care for Recovery disks or partition. Can
deal with disasters without it and end up with latest drivers, while you end
up woth OBSOLETE crap when usingf recovery disks.

But anyway, I dont think harddisk recovery function is defeated after making
recovery disks, though not 100% sure.
Why don't you open Windows Explorer and see if that recovery partition is
used, full or released/empty for you rusage?

I killed it. I needed that 9Gigabyte space it was wasting.