Need info on Partition

Hi guys.
I ordered a Dell 6400 (Canada). Should be here in 2 weeks (according to their estimate).
Now, I have been reading about how much junk Dell likes to put on your hard drive. I ordered a 120gb harddrive, and would like to utilize most of it. I was reading SouthernGirl's XP Format thread as I would be formatting the laptops harddrive, and stumbled upon the partition section. Although i am pretty good with computers, I have never dealt with/needed/or wanted to know about partitions. The XP Format thread states that with Dell's, there are usually the following partitions:

Partition 1 - Diagnostics Partition
Partition 2 - XP Partition
Partition 3 - Backup Partition
Partition 4 - Restore Partition

If I format and remove all the partitions (except #1), will I be able to gain all the space previously occupied by partitions 2,3, and 4 and be able to use the new space in just one partition?

Sorry if it sounds newbiish, I just dont know that much about partitions.

Thanks for the help.

 

Yes, you will be able to use the space. Once you delete those 3 partitions, it will become unpartition space. You can create your XP partition and another partition if you would like or just create 1 partition for XP.

SG