Windows 7: Help reinstalling 7 without 100MB partition and more...

Hi,

I currently have Windows 7 x64 Home Premium installed, and i'm going to reinstall it. At the moment, my drive is 500Gb and setup as follows:



http://img85.imageshack.us/img85/122/disks.png

Now when I reinstall, I'd like to a) get rid of that 100mb partition and b) have a seperate partition of around 45GB for the OS/Program Files and the rest of the drive for data. So the obvious question, is how can I do that? I've seen many posts on removing that 100mb partition, but they're all about initial installs, not reinstalls.

When I just booted from DVD now and went into the install bit, I had the option of deleting the 100mb partition, but got a warning telling me I may lose valuble files, etc etc, so didn't do it, and no way to add the extra partition I wanted

So my question is, how can I go about achieving what i'm after?

Thanks.

Hello Killer , Welcome!

Not quite sure myself on how to get rid of the partition, but you can always install, then follow the instructions in the tutorials for removing the partition. Just adds an extra step...

Hope this helps,
~Jonathan

If you are doing a clean install from the DVD. Just boot from the DVD, when you get to the page asking for clean or upgrade or advanced option, choose the advanced option. You can format and make or reduce partitions at that screen. I hope I understood your question.

If you are reinstalling, that partition will be replaced. But, things do and can go wrong. Make a system image, first. If needed you can use the image to get back to your starting point.

I have backed up all of the data from my drive that I wish to keep, so yes, it will be a clean install. I suppose what I'm asking first, is it is safe to delete that 100MB partition? Then how do I create new partitions? Do I need to format the drive first? Because the 'new' option was greyed out when I tried it a moment ago.

Assuming you want to do a clean install, do the following. You will end up with a freshly formatted install with no 100 mb partition. After you get Windows 7 installed, you can go back into Windows Disk Managment and create another partition or more from the unallocated space.

Back up your existing personal data files, bookmarks, email, mp3s, video, etc.

Boot from the Windows 7 DVD

1.Once Windows 7 Setup is loaded, press Shift + F10 keys at the first setup screen (which allows selection of language, keyboard and locale). A Command Prompt window will be opened.

2.Run Diskpart, the built-in disk partitioning tool of Windows 7 with the following command:

diskpart

3.Type in the following commands one by one, followed by the Enter key to create a partition (text in brackets are comments only):

list disk (to show the ID number of the hard disk to partition, normally Disk 0)

select disk 0 (change 0 to another number if applicable)

clean

create partition primary size=50000 (creates a partition with 50 GB space; to use the entire disk as one partition, omit the “size=value” parameter switch; use a similar command to create more partitions if needed or create in Windows 7 after installation)

select partition 1

active

format fs=ntfs quick

exit

4.Type exit at command prompt to close Command Prompt window.

5.Continue Windows 7 installation as usual. Remember to just highlight and select the partition just created when you come to the partition screen.

Thanks a ton, just gone through all that and it seems to have worked ok, installing now.