By partitioning the hard drive and having the OS and applications in the
system partition, can we setup auto system recovery (ASR) only for that
partition?
I'll pass on that question, since I don't use ASR.
Also, if I don't have any partitioning in my hard disk right now, do I have
to wait until I reformat the disk next time to start having partitions? In
other words, can we partition the disk anytime without affecting any data on
the drive?
First, a word on the terminology. You *do* have partitioning on the
drive right now. To partition a drive is to create one or more
partitions on it, and the drive can't be used unless at least one
partition has been created. So you do have a single partition,
presumably C:.
So your question presumably is about repartitioning so you have
multiple partitions, rather than just one.
Unfortunately, no version of Windows before Vista provides any way of
changing the existing partition structure of the drive
nondestructively. The only way to do what you want is with third-party
software. Partition Magic is the best-known such program, but there
are freeware/shareware alternatives. One such program is BootIt Next
Generation. It's shareware, but comes with a free 30-day trial, so you
should be able to do what you want within that 30 days. I haven't used
it myself (because I've never needed to use *any* such program), but
it comes highly recommended by several other MVPs here.
Whatever software you use, make sure you have a good backup before
beginning. Although there's no reason to expect a problem, things
*can* go wrong.