Home Forums Hardware Mac Desktops & Notebooks Wonky startup and freezes (iMac)

It's my understanding that it boots into Recovery HD which then permits restore from TM (at least according to the Apple writeup) — plug in drive with RA on it, boot machine via option-R, restore directly via TM.
Am I missing something?

If that's not the case, then I also have access to a bootable OS 10.7 installation DVD.