Windows 7 - Move Win7 Upgrade Version to New Drive Without Win7 Installation DVD

Hi, I purchased a windows vista-windows 7 upgrade for $30 from a student deal here in canada. The method of installation was a simple .exe file which ran a sort of setup which automatically upgraded to windows 7. Now I have Windows 7 professional 64 bit on my PC, and I just bought a new solid state drive. I want to move the installation to the SDD.

So here's the problem:

I don't have a windows 7 installation DVD, so I can't exactly use the steps described in the tutorial for reinstalling a windows 7 upgrade. I do have a valid upgrade version Product Key, so what I would like to know is whether or not it would work to clone my current install to my SDD. My SDD only has 120GB of space, so I would have to basically delete everything, but I don't care about that. Alternatively, is it illegal to download an image of a Windows 7 installation DVD and use my valid Product Key? Theoretically the product key would work right? (I make this assumption based on the sticky about re-installing Windows 7 upgrade versions). Or, would my key only work with a Windows 7 install dvd that it was intended for? (I don't have one so that wouldn't really work).

I just don't have a clue what to do here, because I don't think I can get another copy of that EXE that I used to upgrade. It says on their website that you can only re-download 30 days from your date of purchase. Am I totally stuck? I am completely welcome to any suggestions because I really hope that I didn't just waste $400 on an SSD, because I definitely don't want to buy windows 7 again.

Thank you so much to everyone who takes the time to try to help me with this.

I dont know whether your student deal is the same as the Digitalriver student upgrade deal that used to be available for $29.99. The iso's for those are available, download them only if you have a genuine upgrade key.

MS/Digital River Student ISO Links

Also see this thread.

Cloning Win7 to SSD

Take a look here:

USB Windows 7 Installation Key Drive - Create
Make bootable iso from student d/l

Thank you so much Bill2. I had no idea those ISOs were readily available. I found digitalriver's support email last night and it seems like it's monitored by robots because for some reason they gave me a link to microsoft office support of some kind.

DigitalRiver is exactly the place I got it from, and a fresh install is my preferred method so this is exactly what I needed.

Thanks again.