Installing win7 without losing data?

[miro2010]

I have a new hp pavilion laptop with Win7 pre-installed, with no cd for windows. I was advised to make a set of recovery disks first thing before changing anything else in windows settings which I did.
Then I partitioned my HD (500 GB) into 2 additional logical drives, in addition to the main C windows drive, and another pre-created Recovery drive.
I store all my data, media on those 2 additional logical drives leaving C mainly for windows only and everything working fine so far.
I need to know, whenever I need to re-install windows 7 (if any problems arise), how to do that without deleting my data on the 2 logical drives? i would only need to format C and re-install windows on it, will that be possible with the recovery disks? I used to do that with my previous PC using windows XP without the need to backup all my data on the other drives every time I do a re-install... is that possible with windows 7?
Need your opinions...

 

[gregrocker]

If you want to use the Recovery Partition to reinstsall, which also reinstalls all the corrupting bloatware, then it MIGHT give you the option to reinstall only to the C: drive. If not, you'll need to back up your data - which you should do anyway at all times.

You can test the recovery to see if it allows you to reinstall just to C: Just cancel out after you see.

Most tech enthusiasts find a copy of the OS in their version so they can clean reinstall without bloatware. Until then you need to make a repair CD in case Windows won't boot, so you can repair it.