Well, that's about it--my Toshiba recovery DVD has no i386 folder, just some executables that seem to run the installation process. Is there any way to make an image from this DVD?

That disk is some sort of "image" of a complete install (OS, drivers, others). Even if the image has an i386 folder and you use the right application to extract it, you can discover that the instalation is locked only on your PC model and you cannot make a virtual test with it.