I think we are being misunderstood. The fact is that XP's partition utility will do the same exact thing as FDISK. It's just less complicated. It's like a new version of FDISK. Just delete all the partitions using the D key and then create as many partitions as you want, or just stick with one big one. I have a 20GB hard drive, and I have one drive just for system files (5 GB), one drive for program files (5 GB), and one drive for documents and music (10 GB). The reason for this is that I format my hard disk every 2 months or so and this way i only format the 2 small drives so I don't have to back up my music files and documents.
Also, when you're partitioning, be sure to choose NTFS as the file system for your primary partition. XP was designed to use NTFS, and it is better than FAT32. The name even says it; it stands for New Technology File System, and it is different from the old NTFS, which stood for NT File System, and it was designed for Windows NT.
EDIT: Whoops, I guess I posted this when VR6 was editing his post.
By the way, you do realize that when you do install XP, DOS is gone? I mean, you can still use the DOS prompt, but you can't boot into DOS mode because there is none. XP is the first real operating system for home users from MS, because it's not just a shell for DOS like Windows 9X/2K.