New
#1
Can't partition unalloted space
I am a novice (well,almost). I recently upgraded to Windows 7 from Vista on my Dell Inspiron 11z and used the Dell Upgrade Disks for it. But I went into the advance tabs, repartitioned the disk and performed a clean install so that I could get two partitions instead of the default one which my Dell Inspiron 11z came with. To put it simply, I wanted a main partition for my programs, and one more partition for storing data.
I don't know where I went wrong, but I now have 4 partitions: one with Windows 7, and three more recovery and system partitions (I'm guessing one of the recovery partitions is for Vista courtesy Dell, while the other two were created during the upgrade). Two of these four show up in My Computer (primary and recovery). And I also have unalloted space in place of the second partition I created (or so I thought). See the attached screenshot.
The problem is that I get a warning if I try to create a new simple volume on it, which says something about converting the basic disk to a dynamic disk. See screenshot 2.
Some basic research revealed that I can only have only up to 4 basic disks, and therefore the warning box.
My question: It is safe for me to just make the unalloted space into a dynamic disk and let the recovery partitions remain as they are? As I mentioned, I just need the new partition for storing files and not for installing another OS.
If not, then should I delete one of the system or recovery partitions so that I do not exceed the limit of four basic disks? Which one is the safest to delete? I don't really intend to roll back to Vista, but don't mind keeping it since space is not really a concern.