Question : Windows 7 - Repairs wrong drive

I have on my hands a HP 6930p which has stopped working. It was delivered with Win Vista, but has been upgraded with Win 7. It has been working fine for months when this happened:

Some kind of USB smartcard reader was inserted, but failed to install. The next time the machine was rebooted it fails during Win 7 startup. On the restart it goes to Windows Error Recovery, and you have the option to go to Launch Windows repair.
Startup repair checks the system for errors, but states "Windows cannot repair this computer automatically".
I then go to System Recovery Options. This windows states:
"Operating system: Windows 7 on (D:) Local Disk" (I'm pretty sure Win 7 was installed on C:, and all other partitions removed)
When I go to System Restore I get a list of various restore points. I select the latest one, and in the next window it shows only one drive in the selection:
Drive                                               Status
"Local Disk (C:) (System)            You must enable System Protection on this drive
It is not possible to mark this drive for recovery.
(When I start the command prompt window it starts in X:, but all user files are on D:. C: is empty.)
Why does it say that C: drive is the system drive AND that Win 7 is installed on D: drive? How can I get out of this mess? I would like to reinstall Win 7 by doing an upgrade install, which will leave data on the disk alone. But I only have Win 7 upgrade, which can only be started when the PC is booted into Windows from the hard drive. Does this mean I have to reinstall Vista, then do a Win 7 upgrade?

Any help appreciated!

Answer : Windows 7 - Repairs wrong drive

boot.ini is a hidden file. it should be on c o d root. if booting with dos make

    attrib -s -h boot.ini

if that returns without error, you found it.

boot.ini looks like (dont know sure for w7 but have w7 currently not available)

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect

the above means only one drive and 1 partition (c:).

i assume you have disk(1) or rdisk(1) or partition(2)  what might be the reason for the d drive shown when repairing.