Deleting Partitions.

Hello, I just joined the forums to get some support on one little thing I'm about to do.

About a year ago I bought a Dell XPS M1530 (it came with Vista installed). Last month I decided to do a clean Windows 7 install (I installed the 7 professional edition that I got with the MSDN alliance program).

The thing here is that when I had Windows Vista, the "Computer" folder showed the main Hard Drive (C) and a 10GB Recovery Partition(D).

When I did the installation I decided to format the C drive and install the OS there, but did nothing with D.

Now that I'm done with the installation, with windows working great, I wanna delete the partitions so I can have all the capacity merged together.

I went to the "Computer Manager" tool: The following drives were shown:



This is the info shown on Computer:



I understand that the OS is installed on the C drive and that the D drive might me some stuff that Dell put in in case I want to restore to factory settings. I don't know squat about the two other drives.

The questions are:

Can I delete the other 3 partitions without having any issues?

What do you guys recommend?

Is it ok to format the D drive with Vista info in there?

Is it ok to delete the two partitions that don't show on Computer?

How exactly do I merge the drives/delete partitions?


Thanks for reading, hope you answer.

Right click on D , and choose delete volume. The label of the volume will be green . Right click on it again, and create a new volume in the empty space.

EDIT : Havent noticed earlier that there is a OEM partition that you want to delete .... it may cause a boot problem by deleting an oem partition.

You can only extend to right of C: :ar:
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/2670-partition-volume-extend.html
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/2668-partition-volume-delete.html?ltr=P

OK, so everyone is likely to have a different response ... and here is mine:

Leave the OEM partition alone. It's very small and if you DO delete it, it may present problems. You can surely spare less than 100MB of disk space on your drive.

If the machine has the feature to create recovery CDs/DVDs, use that feature to create them. That should provide you the ability to restore the machine to it's original Vista state -- should you decide to sell it down the road. IF you don't intend EVER to sell it or send it back to the vendor, then you could just not bother with this and remove the Recovery partition.

Personally, I like to have my machines partitioned with a smaller OS volume and a very large Data volume -- because I do regular image backups of my OS volume, and it's nice to be able to write them to the same drive. Then later, I hook the machine into my home network and copy off the backups to a network drive, always keeping the most recent backup locally.

So, I would use the Win7 Disk Management utility to shrink your OS volume down to 40GB at most, create a new NTFS data partition, and keep it like that.

Since System Restore is (IMHO) basically a waste of time, I have found this approach to have saved me quite a few times when I needed to restore my system -- and it saves a LOT of time that would otherwise be spent reinstalling software and restoring user settings.

But ... that's just what I do and others will have different ideas.

1. The little OEM partition I would keep. It most likely contains some system tools that you might need down the line. If you have a Win7 Ultimate, it may also serve for BitLocker.

2. The little 2.5GB partition you can delete and then add the unallocated space to C.

3. The Vista recovery partition you can also delete if you do not want to maintain a Vista reinstallation capability. Adding it to C is a more complex task. You cannot do it in Windows because it is to the left of C. You can, however, do it with Partition Wizard (use the bootable CD option) . It may be smart though to image your C before you do that - just in case. Use free Macrium for imaging.
Alternatively you can use the freed up D partition as data partition. That would be the smartest move.

The easiest way may be (I guess) ....
As you have the windows 7 installer dvd, you can have another clean install, with formatting entire disk. But in this situation, you have to back up all your data in an external drive, or dvds.

Hello supermati, welcome to Seven Forums!





As the Windows C: partition contains everything needed to start/boot Windows you can, if you choose to, delete every other partition on the Hard Disk Drive (HDD) as has been mentioned, this is a very reliable program that will help you do that; just be sure to have reliable back-ups of anything you would not want to lose before you start.


Partition Wizard Free Partition Tool

Thanks for the input guys.

So far, I've been able to delete the 2.5gb partition volume, then deleted the partition, then transferred that 2.5 unallocated space to the C drive by "extending it".

As of now, this is what the Computer Management screen shows:



I looked around and I have all of the disks that came with the computer:

Some Dell application disks
"Drivers and utilities already installed on your computer" disk
Windows Vista Home Premium 32 Bit SP1 Disk

Would it be ok for me to at least format/clean/empty the D drive considering that I have the physical disks? (Maybe even try to extend it to C later)

Would the disks themselves really work with my computer already having Windows 7 Professional?

Thanks again

Bare Foot Kid said:

Hello supermati, welcome to Seven Forums!

As the Windows C: partition contains everything needed to start/boot Windows you can, if you choose to, delete every other partition on the Hard Disk Drive (HDD) as has been mentioned, this is a very reliable program that will help you do that; just be sure to have reliable back-ups of anything you would not want to lose before you start.


Partition Wizard Free Partition Tool

Click to expand...

The built in Windows tools only work to the right and will not do anything to the left so you will have to use a third party tool to do the rest; do you know how to burn an ISO to disk?

Bare Foot Kid said:

Bare Foot Kid said:

Hello supermati, welcome to Seven Forums!

As the Windows C: partition contains everything needed to start/boot Windows you can, if you choose to, delete every other partition on the Hard Disk Drive (HDD) as has been mentioned, this is a very reliable program that will help you do that; just be sure to have reliable back-ups of anything you would not want to lose before you start.


Partition Wizard Free Partition Tool

Click to expand...

The built in Windows tools only work to the right and will not do anything to the left so you will have to use a third party tool to do the rest; do you know how to burn an ISO to disk?

Click to expand...

Yup, sure do .

Even if the Dell CDs do not work, you can protect yourself with images. This way you can avoid reinstallations - it is a lot easier. ( see my post #5 point C above).

OK, here's the link to the bootable Partition Wizard CD that can be used to finish what you want to do, just be sure to have back-ups of anything you don't want to lose just in case.


Partition Wizard Bootable CD





This doesn't really cover all of what you want to do but it'll give you some ideas.


Partition Wizard : Use the Bootable CD

Bare Foot Kid said:

OK, here's the link to the bootable Partition Wizard CD that can be used to finish what you want to do, just be sure to have back-ups of anything you don't want to lose just in case.


Partition Wizard Bootable CD





This doesn't really cover all of what you want to do but it'll give you some ideas.


Partition Wizard : Use the Bootable CD

Click to expand...

Thanks Bare Foot, thanks whs. Thanks everybody. I'll try this out later in the day or maybe tommorrow.

Just one more little thing, it is completely ok for me to format the D drive right now?

Just one more little thing, it is completely ok for me to format the D drive right now?

Click to expand...

As long as you're sure you have no further need of that data.

You can wipe the Recov Partition since you have the disks to restore Vista in case you want to sell the computer since you must keep your MSDN Win7.

Do any of the Dell utilities work now? If not, you can delete the OEM partition at the same time since you will most likely need to repair the MBR anyway when you recover the Recovery Partition space into Win7.

Keep in mind that the best way to do all of this is when reinstalling Win7, by zeroing the HD first. However with our favorite tool here, free Partition Wizard bootable CD, you can zero partitions piecemeal following these steps:

Back up files and a Win7 backup image externally. Boot PW CD, select 1 for screen res, rightclick OEM>Wipe Partition, OK. Rightclick Recov Partition>Wipe Partition, OK.

Now right click Win7 partition>Resize, grab left grey border to slide it all the way to the left side of HD, over the OEM and Recov deleted space, OK. Apply all steps.

Win7 will likely not boot now. Boot the Win7 DVD Repair console or Repair CD, click through to Recovery Tools list to run Startup Repair up to 3 separate times with reboots until Win7 starts.

I always run chkdsk after doing this to check the file system, but there is almost never any problem.

Supermati,

Use Partition Wizard.
Delete any partitions you do not want.
Locate remaining partition(s) as you want them.

Before you do all of this,
1) make a system repair disk (VERY IMPORTANT)
2) Use Windows Backup & Restore to backup to an EXTERNAL USB drive. This way you will always be able to recover from a disaster.

That said I will also give some links to other backup/restore software.


START | type System Repair | Enter key | Create Disc button

Backup Complete Computer - Create an Image Backup - Windows 7 Forums


DISK COPY/CLONE/PARTITION/BACKUP/RESTORE SOFTWARE


PARTITION WIZARD (a favorite of many SevenForum contributors)
Free download partition magic, partition manager and partition wizard online.
Free Download Magic Partition Manager Software – Partition Wizard Online


MACRIUM REFLECT
Macrium Reflect Backup and Hard Disk Imaging for Windows 7, Vista, XP and Server 2003/2008

Macrium Reflect. A complete hard disk image and backup software solution for your PC. Protect your personal documents, photos, music and emails. Upgrade your hard disk or try new operating systems in the safe knowledge that everything is securely saved in an easily recovered backup file

PARAGON BACKUP AND RECOVERY SOFTWARE
Free Backup Software: Paragon Backup & Recovery Free Edition - Overview
Backup & Recovery Free Edition
Total PC Protection for Serious Users! Take complete control of your PC’s safety. Based on solid commercial backup and recovery software from Paragon, the new Backup & Recovery Free Edition will give you a rich set of features that you can trust. Smart people backup; Backup & Recovery is smart backup.

EASEUS
EASEUS Disk Copy is a FREE reliable disaster recovery, hard disk copy, disk clone, partition copy, backup freeware. Support for all Hard Drive and removable drive.
EASEUS Disk Copy: Free Disk Copy, Disk Clone, Partition Copy Software. Sector by Sector for hard drive backup freeware.


WINDOWS 7
Backup & Restore (WIN | type back | Enter)
Disk Management (DiskMgmt.msc)
Disk Partitioning (DiskPart)

Thanks for the big help guys.

I'm delaying my partition for today as I'm now having problems with my iPod touch (battery depleting on standby), so I have to backup a couple of files.

When I'm done with that, I'll burn the partition application and try it out.

All right mate, be sure to post back with an update.