Accidentally installed windows 7 on my Recovery Partition D:\

Yes. The image is factory.wim.

The restore program expects factory.wim to be in a predefined place.

Looks like it is using some complicated method of defining that instead of simple relative paths.

Never mind.

As long as you have factory.wim - you can use something else to restore it .

I always install windows by applying the image with imagex - can't remember the last time I wasted time with the MS setup program.

Because your factory.wim is an image file - not an installation file, that is all you need to do.

No need to create boot files or for windows to install devices, etc.

Simply apply the image.

You can use gimagex if you want a gui . download zip GImageX

Can you post screenshot of the contents of the windowsre folder - is there a subfolder?

What is the name of the bootable wim dell are using?

I think I made a mistake with the MS recovery program I accessed. It had an option to restore to factory image, and I pressed it last night. It all of a sudden seemed to have wiped my computer clean. When I restarted my computer it just said that there was no boot manager and won't let me load anything.

I tried booting the computer with the Windows 7 installation disk that came with it. However, I just had a look at what install options I have and did not reinstall windows. It seems that all the partitions I had were gone, and the installation just gave me the option of one big unpartitioned hard drive. It is not a big deal to me if I lost everything. I don't really need to restore it to the factory image, but am just wondering if I can. If there is no way to restore to factory image, would it be a totally clean install if I installed Windows 7 again?

And thanks for all your advice.

You can browse in to see if anything still exists to rescue files to external: Copy & Paste - in Windows Recovery Console

If so you can follow these steps for when Windows 7 fails to boot

If not then once again here are the steps to Clean Reinstall Windows 7 Factory OEM