extending partition?

I don't remember the EXACT size it was in MB. Would it be safe to use the Partition Recovery Wizard in PW? And does it know how much to shrink it back?

It does not really have to be that exact. An approximation is good enough. It is only ashame to waste all that space in D where it is useless. As already suggested, I would make it a new partition and move my user data there - it is a lot safer if seperate from the OS. But if you want to do that, post back and we will give you detailed guidance on how to do that. It is a little tricky.

gregrocker said:

The Recovery partition was 11.08gb in first screenshot. If you extended it then I would shrink it back to the same exact size using the same utility you originally used to decrease possibility of files copying differently

I used my resident PW.

gregrocker said:

What "Rescue disks" do you have?

I still have them all: one labeled Repair Disc W7 64bit, which I successfully used twice, another labeled Rescue W7 64bit, plus a set of 3 CDs labeled W7 Recovery Disk 1, 2, and 3. I guess I got overly careful and made a new set each time I was reminded of it by the system!

I made a new backup, but I forgot how I made the restore disks in the past!

If the repartitioning was all set and your second drive had been for storage and backup I would have recommended the idea of seeing a full system image created and stored there. That will restore the entire drive in case of any mishaps even when booted live from the repair or Disk #1 likely of the recovery disks where the restore option is seen when going to use the repair tools.

The support site or user guide that came with the system is where you would find the instructions for creating a new set of recovery disks. For a fast repair tools cd the option for that is seen in the Control Panel>Backup & Restore section there.

Night Hawk said:

If the repartitioning was all set and your second drive had been for storage and backup I would have recommended the idea of seeing a full system image created and stored there. That will restore the entire drive in case of any mishaps even when booted live from the repair or Disk #1 likely of the recovery disks where the restore option is seen when going to use the repair tools.

That is something I always wanted, but I think one would need 2 drives of equal size for that. My drive 2 is only 500GB.

gregrocker said:

Please post back another screenshot of your full Disk Management drive map so we can see where you are.

Ok, here it is.

gregrocker said:

If you used Partition Wizard (PW) CD to Resize the partition, you'll want to use it to Resize it again to 11.08gb, this time resizing it to where you want it to be on the HD - I suggest all the way to the right in the less desirable address. I can give you exact steps if it helps more.

I used PW on my HD, not the CD.

gregrocker said:

I am still not clear you have made your Recovery disk set off of this partition.

No, not of the current one. I didn't remember how to do it.

gregrocker said:

You said earlier that you made them and have used them to repair Windows. These disks are only used to restore the hard drive to factory condition, not repair Windows. You use a Win7 repair disk to do that.

Correct, I used the "Repair" disk twice when W7 gave me booting problems. I also did a factory restore a longer
while ago, using the "rescue" CD or the 3 "Recovery" disks, can't remember which.

gregrocker said:

Then you have Factory Recovery Disks made off of the Recovery Partition, which restore all of the bloatware that came with the computer to the exact state it was when you got it.

That is very likely what I did.

gregrocker said:

The valuable Recovery for you is to make a Win7 backup image stored externally so that if your Win7 ever becomes irreparable, you simply boot the Repair CD, select "Recover Using An Image" to let it detect the image on external, then it reimages the HD or a replacement in 15 minutes to your own configuration at the time you saved the image.

That's the ideal, but don't I need an equal size drive for that? Many years ago I used to have an IBM app which allowed me to make a HD image on to a FLOPPY, of all things, that could do that same thing. Unfortunately, it worked on IBM drives only.

With the backup tool in 7's CP or a 3rd party imaging program you can select one drive namely the 7 host drive or add the second XP drive into an even larger image. Or you can create a second image for the second drive.

These would be stored either on a 3rd drive added in or externally like gregrocker pointed out. For moving any partition that has no free space after it would be the need to shrink it down first before using the move option.

If it's the same as seen in the image you posted at the top of the thread at 11.08gb you would simply use the move option to increase the space in front of it reducing the space behind it at the same time. Another image of how things look now however would be a good idea.

If you are going to be using PW for moving the recovery partition over then you will want to review the screens as well as instructions for Move/Resize Partition

You'll find that looks very much like how GParted works for moving partitions as well when you take a close look at how the gui works. One 3rd party reference shows how that is done in the free Linux program. Task 6: Move partition

I think we've done it. Thanks for all your patience and help!