If you haven't had you computer long, you can still make recovery discs, eliminating the need to rely on that recovery partition. Refer to your owner's manual for details. It will usually take around 3 to 5 DVD's (the non-rewritable ones), and about an hour of your time. This way, you don't have to rely on that partition at all.
I used to be a firm believer in having that recovery partition, but it's a waste of a valuable primary partition for me, as I need three or four for my OS's.
A solid backup plan is far better than those recovery partitions are. With Acronis True Image, there's a recovery manager, all you have to do is press F11 prior to the boot options being displayed, and you'll be led to recovery. But I've not yet had to revert to it yet.
The best thing that I've found the recovery partition for is to "start clean", and revert your computer to factory settings. But the discs will do the very same thing.
Cat