You will need to contact Dell for instructions how to create a recovery
disk. Do nothing until you have done this. Your next step will depend
on 1) whether you can create a recovery disk; or 2) assuming you are
able to create one, whether the Dell recovery disk is an image of the
operating system or the operating system itself. You should ask Dell
that question.
If the recovery disk is just an image, then you would need to purchase a
retail copy of XP in order to create the partitions during the
operating system clean installation (starting over).
You cannot partition the drive natively without destroying the data. You
need third-party software to do a non-destructive partitioning job now
(Partition Magic, BootIT NG for ex.), but I wouldn't just plunge
blindly into this without having your data backed up and either the
recovery disk/retail operating system in reserve.
Malke
--
Elephant Boy Computers
www.elephantboycomputers.com
"Don't Panic!"
MS-MVP Windows - Shell/User