Acer HDD partitions

[vince3]

I'm about to start setting up a new Acer 5551 for a neighbour. His old XP Acer (taken over from daughter) had its HDD in two visible equal size partitions - C: and D:
All the daughter's software and data was jammed in C:, and D: showed up almost empty. I cleared out the (daughter's) data from C: then re-assigned all the data folders (My Documents etc.) to D: for the new owner: this is close to how I manage my own desktop so the Windows partition can be restored if necessary without losing data and it makes data backup and recovery easier.
So, two questions: (sorry about the long intro)

1. Will I be OK doing the same with the new laptop? Acer's documentation says the recovery process occupies 15GB on a hidden partition, but doesn't mention the D: partition.
2. Is it safe to use the Windows 7 partitioning facility to rearrange Acer's partition sizes, if that seems appropriate, without messing up the recovery stuff.

Any help/advice much appreciated.
Thank you

 

[beermonster]

i think it will be split 50/50 the same as the old acer, so install programs to C: and save data to D: then you can mess about with the boot partion without losing data.

 

[vince3]

Thanks. I thought that would probably be the case. So I assume it will be OK to use the W7 partitioning facility to rearrange the 50/50 space split.

 

[Morbius]

I've merged the two partitions before without any issues. The backup partition is separate from the C: and D: partitions.