Installed Clean Windows 7 and now Dell Recovery Drive D is Missing!

I moved all of the stuff that I wanted to keep to my recovery drive. I thought it was a separate drive from my C: drive. When I went to do a fresh install of Windows 7 instead of upgrading to Windows 7 from Windows Vista my Recovery D: drive was missing from the list of drives. I did a "fresh" install after doing the upgrade option because I was having problems after doing it that way. My husband said he knew others that had problems after doing the upgrade option so that's why he said maybe reinstall it fresh.

Anyway.. I solved the issue with data recovery software. Now I just have to put everything back into it's rightful place.

Thanks again for all the replies. Much appreciated. :)

Recovery drive is normally the Factory Recovery partition used to restore Win7 to factory condition. That's the last place files should be moved as it would foul the Recovery so it couldn't run. It shouldn't even have a letter.

When you reinstalled hopefully you followed the steps in Clean Reinstall - Factory OEM Windows 7
which shows how to get and keep a perfect install based on tens of thousands we've helped with here.

A good backup should be to another HD or external HD, unless you only have enough files they will fit on a DVD or flash stick. A modern free method for backup which also will sync files across all your devices is compiled in Sync, Backup and Store your Files to the Cloud with Skydrive - Windows 7 Forums.