Dell Back-up and Recovery Issues

Hi folks,

I installed Windows 8.1 then had problems with my Dell Back-up and Recovery.  First, it said I hadn't created a factory recovery disc, which I had for Windows 8 but not Windows 8.1, so I re-created a factory recovery disc, which gave me the option to remove it from my C: drive.  I thought this might be a good idea, so, having ensured that I have a recovery disc safely on a USB stick I said to go ahead and delete the recovery partition on my C: drive.  Immediately after this I tried to run my back-up and recovery, only to discover that I needed to keep the recovery partition on my C: drive after all.  :emotion-42:  Why would it offer for me to do that if I needed to keep it on the C: drive for doing my back-up and recovery?  I don't understand.  So what do I do now?  I don't want to recover the factory settings (other than the recovery partition... if I have to), because restoring the factory settings will change a whole heap of stuff I've got set up, and perhaps cause me to lose a whole heap of e-mails in my e-mail software, which is the absolute last thing I want to do, but I do want to get my back-ups done.  *sigh*  Why is it that whenever there's an update it seems that it causes so many things to not work, that had been working perfectly?  Is there something or some information I'm missing?  :emotion-9:  Is it possible to recover the recovery partition files to my C: drive without affecting anything else?  Thank you so much for your advice.