BleepingComputer.com: Missing Question

Can anyone tell me why my laptop has it's hard drive partitioned into 2 sections, the C drive and another called recovery. I'm running windows 7 but had a similar situation with vista. The drive called recovery is labelled a healthy but it takes up 9.77 gigs, leaving me with only 64.74 gigs to use.

This recovery disk partition is growing over the months and I'm wondering what it is used for (presumably some sort of recovery) but as I regularly change operating systems I want to erase or shink it to do a fresh install but the computer management console won't let me do anything with it.

One thing did occur to me though, perhaps it parts of the disk that have been damaged during the last year or so (I don't treat it with much respect).

The laptop an Acer Extensa 5220, so if there are any geeks in the know please pass on any info, or point me in the right direction because I seem to be going round in circles at the moment.

Much appriciated.

The recovery partition shouldn't grow, it is a set size. Most recovery partitions can be deleted during setup (fdisk/format)when installing a new OS. Some manufacturers have a "recovery partition delete" program as well.

The recovery partition takes the place of disks on newer computers.
It can usually be used to repair, or do a clean install, of Windows.
There is usually a program installed that allows a person to make a set of reinstallation disks .

If you check the manual for your unit there may be a "hotkey" command to launch the reinstaller.
If there isn't you may as well delete the recovery partition as it is useless with no way to access it.

Thanks to both dpunisher and fairjoeblue for your replies, does this mean that it is ok to delete this partition? or would it be better to leave it as it is. And if it is used for recovery -how?