Is is possible to backup the recovery portion of my hard drive to a DVD and would it work to reload XP?

Yes you can copy it to a DVD, or two. You would only need to save the last one, so a regular CD would to.. but

NO, you cannot restore XP from these files. since they would only be copies of your registry. All the files this registry refers to would have been lost, so would their exact location on the hard drive. Some of this data in 'non-movable' and the registry keeps track of where it is on the drive. Reformatting or replacing a drive would change the location of these files depending in which order you install them. So no, you cannot re-install XP from these files.

Assuming your workstation got here with a disk you may want to not desire something from the restoration force so that you'll delete all of it in case you want the gap. in the different case its probable no longer smart to pass deleting something in there without understanding what you're doing. truly speaking 10GB in a lot of your entire area so it wont make a lot of a huge difference besides. As for issues no longer being "totally deleted", once you empty your recycle bin the gap is basically freed for reuse. records, notwithstanding, leave in the back of a magnetic imprint, with the purpose to talk, on your confusing force which could be restored via authorities agencies as an party except you've written over the area of the confusing force quite a few situations. except your getting as a lot as dodgy unlawful stuff on your workstation this should not be a situation.

Get an external Hard Drive and buy a copy of Acronis Image software, yuo can clone the whole drive so if it dies, you simply replace teh HardDrive and restore the image.