Lenovo Backup Got Erased..I don't know how

Question

I have a Lenovo R61 (Vista x86)

Recently I formatted my Primary Partition (leaving my recovery partition intact) to install MSDN Windows 7 Pro. This was the second time I was doing this on this laptop --> Formatting C and installing BUT

After I did it the second time, I found out that my recovery partition is reporting to be 100% free and the ThinkVantage Rescue Option doesn't even appear in the boot menu after I press the "Blue Button". In fact the first time I did this (the formatting), I used to get an option to go to rescue in the Windows Boot Loader Screen Itself ( Like another operating System --> Windows Setup EMS Enabled )

So This apparent erasal had not happened the first time I had installed Windows 7. But now it has happened, and I am more than sure that I have not formatted it myself in the Windows Installation (proof: coz it still shows up as recovery partition in the disk management console)

Could somebody tell me:

1. What Exactly Happened.
2. Whether It should have happened or not.
3. If possible How can I recover the apparently lost recovery part (Just for the sake of recovering it)
4. I don't Have a recovery Disc made, so suggesting that goes out.

Answer 1

The recovery console uses a specialised modified bootloader to start up. Good news is the recovery console is still there. Bad news is you over-wrote the bootloader needed to access it.

With my r51, there was a boot-loader repair tool amongst the drivers for the model. It needed a LOT of digging to find- if there's a similar tool for your model, you should be able to gain access again for it.

This is why you always make a backup disk before you do anything major.