Need some guidance on my t61

This is my first laptop and first thinkpad I have quite a few questions that lenovo technical support wasn't very helpful on.

1) I created a backup recovery dvd using the create recovery tool. I was under the impression that this would take up a few dvd's. Mine only created 1 dvd and it used about 580 MB on that dvd. Does this sound right?

2) How do you go about deleting the recovery partition. The tech support rep told me I have to download 3rd party software to delete it, I'm not really sure on how to do this. I'd appreciate it if you could point me in a general direction.

3) I have about 87 processes running right now and I'd really like to lower that number. What is a reasonable amount to get it down to? In XP I had my desktop running like 30 processes but with a laptop and vista I know I should expect more processes to be running. I tried controlling this by deselecting some of the stuff that starts up automatically with your computer but there is so much stuff that I don't know what 90% of them are. Again, if you could point me in a general direction I'd really appreciate it. If I use base software administrator would I be able to get those processes down to like 60 or 70?

4) Last I docked my laptop last night to hook it up to my 37" LCD. The native resolution of my tv is 1366 x 768. I couln't get the desktop to fit on my tv. I was duplicating my desktop on my laptop and LCD. I was trying to adjust the resolutions but the desktop would come out either too small or too big. I'm using a 25 foot dvi to hdmi cable. Again help on this would be greatly appreciated.

 

1. defintely not right. It should be around 6G.
2. No need to delete the hidden partition, leave it alone. You already has a large hard drive.
3. I do not know how to, there are some certain programs can do this job. My T40 now has 46 processes, I just disable some service, you can find it under the control panel
4.Go the the display, there you can find three options, one is connect to monitor, one is the TV.Turn it on,I assume that you use s-video to connect the laptop with TV.
Good luck!