partition laptop hd question (w/ disk mgt screen)

Somebody hold my hand for a minute please? First off, I'm not a dummy, just not current w/ w7! I guess I don't really get the whats and whys of partiitioning w7.

So we got a new laptop, refurbished asus and disk mgt looks like this:


Huh? Just disk0, forget disk1 it's external and cool.

On disk0, the internal hd, I think I want to give the OS about 75 gb (anybody wanna sell me on less?). But whats up with that 21.33 gb partition? Is that the boot partition (I thought that was only supposed to be like 200 mb)? Is it just some holdover from whoever originally bought this box?

Do I just forget about, delete that first part., shrink the os part. and expand the data?
Thanks in advance!

Because you didn't maximize the Disk Mgmt window we can't see partition used space sizes.

It looks like the 21 gb partition is an old Recovery partition. You can tap the key given for Asus Factory Recovery to see if it will cue up from boot, but that doesn't mean it will complete if run. But it might allow you to generate the Recovery Disks if you want them and it hasn't been reinstalled yet.

Otherwise you can Explore it's contents to be sure using free Partition Wizard bootable CD, if you want rightclick>Delete it, then rightclick>C to Resize by dragging it's left grey border to the left to take up its space, check it over and apply both steps.

You can then resize D, add as many Logical sub-partitions as you want, or delete it to create new Primary partitions up to the limit of 3 before it will again offer you a Logical for the fourth.

Old recovery partition, that's it! It would have been wiped during the refurb.

I tried maximizing the window, but it still doesn't show used/free space, but a quick check of properties shows it to be blank.

Thanks!

Sometimes those OEM partitions listings lie. That's why I suggested Exploring it with PW CD which can see into them anyway, and which you'll need to use to delete it to resize C into it's space.

But if you dont' want it anyway then go ahead. PW is the most valuable tool we use here, never fails, and checks the file system as it works.