How Many Primary Partitions with Windows 7 Pro 64-bit installed by Dell on XPS 8700?

In choosing XPS 8700 hardware with Windows 7 Pro 64-bit installed by Dell (a business system), 
my question arose from whether can use

(1)  dual boot (Windows 7 Pro 64-bit & Linux Variant) on single HDD, or
(2)  if not a multi-boot with two HDDs?

There are numerous recipes that begin with fresh install of Windows 7 with two primary partitions.
However,  Dell introduces partition(s) for maintenance, which are required, I think, for maintaining Dell Support Plans.
Hence, the question.