Windows 7: question about system reserved partition

First off let me appologize in advance if this question is in the wrong place.

I just bought a hard drive from a friend of mine and when I got it home and installed I found that I had this partition. My question is ....I am running windows xp..is there any way to get rid of this partition without reformatting the HDD, is it ok to leave alone while running xp, or is there something else I should do....I know that the popular answer is going to be UPGRADE to win 7...I am planning on doing this next spring when I upgrade my comp.

How large is the reserved partition, and have you been able to look inside it to see what's on it (assuming it's formatted FAT or NTFS)?

How to delete partition
Partition or Volume - Delete

Gparted is good for resizing and open source

its 100 MB....comes up as its own drive letter...is deleting a partition the same in win xp as it is in win 7??

Sounds like this machine had Windows 7 on it at one point. As long as it doesn't contain the boot data for your install, you can remove it, yes.

The answer is Yes.
The tool is Partition Wizard.

Free Download Magic Partition Manager Software – Partition Wizard Online

Why not wipe the HD before you install XP? Who knows what bad or infected code might be on a used HD?

Use this tutorial: SSD / HDD : Optimize for Windows Reinstallation

If you already have XP on the HD in another partition, then you can use free Partition Wizard CD to wipe the Windows 7 partitions, even Resize XP into that space.

When you are ready to upgrade to Windows 7, boot the DVD then use Drive Tools to Delete and repartition as you wish, format before install.

Maybe I wasn't completely clear....sorry for that. This HDD that I got from a friend is just going to be for extra storage....but I didn't realize the partition was there until I had already transferred a few gigs worth of stuff to it. So is it safe to just delete the partition?

Yes.

You may need to use the Diskpart command to Delete Partition Override on the 100mb SysReserved since it may balk at deleting a System partition.

Or Delete using free Partition Wizard bootable CD which can also resize into the space from an adjacent partition nicely.