Questions about preinstalled partitions

I apologize in advance for the beginner question spree--feel free to just ignore this thread unless youre either feeling very bored or very helpful.

Can someone explain to me what the purpose of these different partitions on that come preinstalled on thinkpads? Well, I know what the C: partition is, but what about Q: and S:.

Q: seems like it's used to create recovery media in case I need to reinstall windows. However, it says I can only create the disks once--does this mean creating the disks will disable the ability to do a full restore from Rescue and Recovery? Does this partition contain the Rescue and Recover software that you run from the boot screen? I thought the backup files were stored on a hidden partition--is there yet another hidden partition that Im not aware of?

And what about S:? Is this another Lenovo specific feature or is this just something new to vista? I purchased my laptop with vista basic because I already have a copy of vista business--if I want to upgrade, do I need to remove this partition?

I would like to keep the ability to do a system restore without needing recovery disks (which I have a habit of misplacing), so in that case, should I just leave both of these partitions as is?