Windows Vista Hard disk formatting problem

Sir,
Problem is with a compaq laptop loaded with vista home basic.When going to My Computer, Manage, Disk management it is showing two un allocated spaces differently (I mean it is not merged).When I deleted one volume it actually deleted another. When I am trying to format it by right clicking an error message is coming saying unable to format.Can I format all other partitions except vista loaded and preserve my OS. Plse help

Regards
Sree

 

Sir,
There is no recovery partitions in this system bcoz it was reformatted and done a fresh installation of vista. Another thing none of the seperate unallocated space is not allowing formatting and cannot be used. Is there is any free utility compatible with vista to reformat and use these partitions

Thanks
Sree