You did not even need to do the clean install from the disk.  That laptop with windows 7does have the restore feature.  You should restart the sytem and at the dell logo repeatedly tap f8 until you get a menue with an option to repair your system.  from there you will see the options for a system image restore.  The original system image should be on that recover partition given you did not alter it.  If you do get the system restored you should also use the dell datasafe local backup program to create another system image you can save to disk.  You can use the disk set to restore your computer if the recovery partition was to get damaged.