Simple, effective way Boot and Restore DVD?

I hate to admit this, but I come from the old school of computers when you always got a restore/boot disk when you got a machine. I recently got a new machine, and have not succeeded yet in making either a boot dvd or a total restore dvd for the OS (Vista Ultimate). After trying unsuccessfully to do this, just wanted to know if there is an especially good, step-by-step, article, post, or sticky that would walk me through both creating a boot dvd and a restore dvd?
All advice is most appreciated.
I have made more than one attempt, but still don't seem to have this down correctly.