Dear Aunt TUAW: Should I mess with my recovery partition?

Dear aunt tuaw,

I'm hoping you can tell me how to perform a non-destructive reclaim of the recovery partition space. I'm on Mac OS X Lion and wish to simply reclaim that odd 700 MB without jeopardising my main partition.

Your loving nephew,

Oscar

Dear Oscar,

Auntie is sorry, but this sounds to her like an absolutely utterly terrible idea. Lots of services require that the recovery partition be left alone. Find My Mac is the first thing that comes to mind.

But that's not all. Apple put that recovery partition there for a really good reason -- it's one of the best ways you get to reinstall the OS, repair your disk, or restore from Time Machine without having to deal with external discs.

Sure, if you have a 64 GB SSD (Auntie does on her beloved MBA), that 700 MB represents a big chunk of space -- but Auntie feels it would be tremendously poor judgement (metaphors about "penny wise pound foolish" spring to mind) to try to proceed in the direction you're proposing.

Hugs,

Auntie T.

Got advice for Oscar? Disagree with Auntie? Sound off in the comments.