Ernest,
Completely understand! When you finally do get some downtime, I'd still recommend a complete wipe and repartion...better yet, pickup a new harddrive to swap into the laptop. That will net you..
1) Won't have to effect any of the files or programs on an already setup computer on one drive.
2) Gives you a brand new clean slate to quickly setup and install a new system
3) Gives you a spare drive thats completely setup to swap to in an emergency.
When I say wipe and start over, I don't mean use the dell restore cd's...I mean take a XP disk (or your os of choice), boot to it, delete all partions, create new ones, format, and install. Make sure you make a cd with the current driver sets from support.dell.com prior to doing this. If you forget to, just swap in that other drive and go
.
Once the system is cleanly setup and updated with the latest drives, windows updates, and programs you want/updates, ghost the system using a cloner of your choice. (I use norton ghost). Save the perfect clones for a year or two down the road when you want to refresh the system as if it had a fresh install.
If you couldn't tell, I'm a firm believer in as many redundancies as possible. Backup drive, backup clones, backups on archival media, external hd's, and raid 1's keep mr murphy in the bahamas instead of your workspace.