questions on formatting 6000 HDD

hey

 

i am about to format my 40gig HDD in my 6000, and i was wandering about the utility partition. Now i am wandering if it is necersary to keep this partition, as it and another small one are eating up 6 precious gigs. i know how to do it all, but was just curious if this partition needs to be kept in order for the laptop to boot??

i can do without utilities

 

thnx james