Recovery Partition Question

I have the Dell model XPS 8700 running Win 7 Pro. It is now 5 years old with the original hard drive that has 3 partitions OS (C), Recovery and FAT (16) and would like to replace it with a Samsung EVO 60 500GB solid state drive. The Samsung drive comes with migrating software to clone the HDD contents to the SSD but there is some debate on where the boot files reside. I'm told the some Dell models have the boot files in the Recovery partition.

1.Does anyone know if this the the case?

2.If the boot files are in the Recovery partition does Dell lock this partition thus making cloning with the Samsung software unavailable?

3. If I am able to clone this partition along with the other two (FAT and OS (C) will I be able to boot from the installed SSD?

Hoping others on the forum might have experience and answers and can assist.

Frank