Hard Drive Re-partitioning

[cia31983]

Hello, I'm an ITT-TECH student in Maryland and in our textbook "Introduction to Personal Computers" ISBN: 0-87119-406-6, in Chapter 5, page 5-4, 2nd paragraph it states that you can seperate your hard drive into three partitions: System, Applications, and Data.
My question is - How can I RE-partition my existing Hard Drive to these three portions without losing anything at all on the Hard Drive?
I'm using Windows Vista Home Basic Upgrade. I have a Gateway Desktop computer that I upgraded from Windows XP to Vista. I have a 1 GB External Hard Drive that I can back up my entire system to.
I also need help understanding how to get all the "Backup" file folders to keep their orginal name once the backup process starts. I.E.: Instead of the files and folders being named Backup 1, Backup 2, etc. I rather for them to keep their orginal names like: Music, Pictures, Documents and so on. How do I do that? Is there a step by step process to partition my Hard Drive for Windows Vista Home Basic, as well as a fast and easy way to Backup my information without losing the files and folder names?
I need this help fast so I can use my computer more efficiently for schooling and Internet Browsing.