Thanks. Yes, I left all the windows partitions in place when I installed Linux. I just shrunk the Windows partition and the 'Lenovo' partition (which I think just held some special apps from Lenovo), created some new partitions, and installed Xubuntu alongside Windows. Windows seems to put something in its partition that only lets you shrink it to half its original size (can't think of any valid reason for that, other than to screw up Linux installs). But I just put a folder inside that Windows partition, and I have it mount at start-up and have it bookmarked in my file manager, so it's not really wasted space.
I'd definitely need to clone my Xubuntu if I were to attempt a re-install of Windows. It probably would just over-write it. But if I go that route, I'll probably drop a re-formatted old laptop drive I have into the machine, and install Windows to that. For the few (if any) times I might need to try something in Windows, that's good enough. And considering it really isn't taking up all that much room on my hard drive (which is larger than my old machine anyhow), I'll probably just leave it in place so I can dual boot if needed. But a recovery system would be good to have in case that drive goes south.
-ERD50