ive just set up a new laptop Acer ASPIRE 5730 250gbHDD ive burned the recovery disc 6 in total is this the usual amount of disc it takes.
When i click on mycomputer it shows two partitions on the HDD yet i can only boot to one of them.
I dont know if one of these partitions is just a backup but it is equal in SIZE to the partition that contains WinVista that i boot up to this seems a large chunk of the HDD for a backup.
I dont really understand computers that dont come with the O/s disc so dont understand how the backup stystem works when having problems with the computer only got the computer yesterday.
Thanks for any help jhadd
hmmm....so when you go to my computer you see 2 volumes? eg. C: 120GB and D: 120GB?

Vista is installed on C: *most likely*, and you'll see a small window icon on the volume that vista is installed on. you only ever boot into that volume. Often what happens is your hard disk will be partitioned into 2 volumes, a system partition where you install all your programs, and a data partition where you can store data. Don't worry yourself about not being able to boot into the other volume haha.

The other possibilty, is your laptop came with a recovery partition. HP, for example, often does this, and does not give consumers a OS installation disc. However, recovery partitions shouldn't be nearly as large as your system partition. typically around 7-10 gigs.