Backups should NEVER be done on the same physical hard drive.  If that drive fails everything is lost including your backups.  Backup to a separate drive, then if there is a hardware failure of the drive you haven't lost your backed up data.   I have a USB connected hard drive that I do full backups to using Acronis True Image software.  I do complete backups of my hard drive (how often depends on what I have done or installed, etc) including all partitions (the main "C" drive plus the Dell Recovery and Diagnostic partitions).  If there is a hard drive failure, or just a corruption of the Operating System, for example, you can fully recover with the Acronis backup to the hard drive in about a hour.
I have been searching the fourm for answers to this question and still not sure on the answer. My recovery drive (d) is full. Will not let me backup anymore. the files in the folder is as follows: Media ID.bin tools windows program files users Dee-PC dell sources  programdata Is there anything I can delete from this to recover more space? Should I even worry about it? I have XPS 420 OptiPlex 755 4GB memory Vista  
Recovery drive (d) full