How to remove red bar (full drive) for manufacturer recovery partition

mariehelene · 16 Jul 2012

Hi
I have an HP PC, which came with a manufacturer "recovery" partition as D letter.
everything was OK in Vista, then with Window Seven home upgrade, then Ultimate 64 bit.
After a problem, I reinstalled Seven Ultimate 32 bits (as I use two old applications and founder Virtual machine very slow)
The point is that the partition stayed the same,
- C drive : 917 go, (781 free)
- HP recovery drive D : 13,4 go (1,25 free).

I know the free space on this recovery D is small, but it always have been so, and the content is the same size (manufacturer recovery) - whitout red bar warning.

Now (since my last clean reinstall) Window detect this D (recovery) miss space and give a "red bar" low space warning.

Is that a way i can delete this red bar warning just for the D (recovery) drive, and keep it for the other drives, without changing or disabling this D partition ?

Everything is working fine, just the bar, which is a annoyance.

That surely must be a way as previously (on Vista, Seven home and Seven ultimate 64 bit) this was not such red bar

Thank you in advance !

Mary

whs · 16 Jul 2012

You get the red bar when the partition has less than 10% freespace. But in the case of the Recovery Partition, that is really nothing to worry about.

HP always cuts their recovery partitions very short. There are a few possibilities how stuff could have gotten into that partition.

1. Because some files were erroneously placed there. Open the partition and see whether there are any of your files that do not belong there.

2. The partition could be activated for restore points that take space. Check that in elevated Command prompt with this command: vssadmin list shadowstorage

mariehelene · 16 Jul 2012

HI
You sure are fast !

I have no personnal file (or hidden file) in D

But doing adm. shadow storage, I see dant D is selecter to back up, (as many external drive, which is strange isn'it?) I tough system restaure was only saving C disk.
Should I deselect it ?

In config - system, all are deslected but C drive, so is that a way for me to really desactivate them ? Or is it pointless ? (sorry for the imprecise words or lins, as I have a French PC...)

windude99 · 16 Jul 2012

Use the HP Recovery media to make recovery discs and delete the recovery partition. You need recovery discs because if your hard drive dies, the recovery partition dies with it. If you have recovery discs, you can restore your computer to factory whether the stock hard drive is in the system or not.

To delete the recovery partition:

Once you have created the recovery discs, go to Start and type in disk management and press enter. Then, in disk management, right click on your recovery partition and select delete. After that, right click on your C: drive and select Extend. On the first page, click on next. On the second page, don't change any of the values and click next. Ont he last page, click on finish.

mariehelene · 16 Jul 2012

That sound fair Windude

And it's a very interesting solution I have not think of.

I already have recovery disc done, but as I clean install Window sevent (32 bit rather than previous 63) I doubt I could do something whit these disks... And I am not too sure about the recovery partion either.

As I have Windows (and most of my software in CD (or DVD), do you think that the recovery disk could really replace the D partition and be of some help. I'll make a new set then.

And that after 3 exploitation system changes (and bit change) it could be usefull.

It make me feel secure to se the "hp recovery option" option when de PC start, It like a "placebo effect" but I have slight doubts....

I just prefer to double check than be sorry.

windude99 · 16 Jul 2012

mariehelene said:

That sound fair Windude

And it's a very interesting solution I have not think of.

I already have recovery disc done, but as I clean install Window sevent (32 bit rather than previous 63) I doubt I could do something whit these disks... And I am not too sure about the recovery partion either.

As I have Windows (and most of my software in CD (or DVD), do you think that the recovery disk could really replace the D partition and be of some help. I'll make a new set then.

And that after 3 exploitation system changes (and bit change) it could be usefull.

It make me feel secure to se the "hp recovery option" option when de PC start, It like a "placebo effect" but I have slight doubts....

I just prefer to double check than be sorry.

You can use the recovery discs whether you have clean installed Windows 7 with another disc or if you are running the stock Windows installation. The recovery discs replace the recovery partition. You don't need the recovery partition as you can boot your system off of disc 1 of your recovery discs and run a full system recovery.

whs · 17 Jul 2012

1. Restore points do not belong on the rcovery partition . That makes no sense. You can deselect it.

2. Deleting the recovery partition is dangerous. Who knows whether your recovery discs work. I would at least make an image of C for an additional backup.

gregrocker · 17 Jul 2012

Your decision on deleting the Recovery partition should be based on whether you think you'd ever need to restore to the original factory condition, such as to sell the machine with it's native OS while keeping your own retail copy of Win7 or upgrade.

If you doubt you'd ever need it then just having the disks should be sufficient. But if you want to rely on having it you should not delete it because it is the most stable method of Recovery while the disks are only a backup method.

There is more about this decision and executing it in Clean Reinstall - Factory OEM Windows 7

mariehelene · 18 Jul 2012

Hi,
After reading these posts, I prefer keeping the D (recovery) partition,
But then, we are back to my initial question :

In Windows Seven (utimate), is this a way for the D (recovery) drive not to be gauged with the red bar (too full) as it don't apply ?

Is this a way to remove the gauge bar, and have just the D partition icon (like before, another version of Seven) - my favorite solution -

Or at least to remove visually D (recovery) Icon, but keep it effective ?

Thank you all for your help

Marie

windude99 · 18 Jul 2012

I did a little bit of online researching and found this: Hiding Drive Icons - regtips - FreeLists

This will require you to mess with the registry a bitand that is risky, so be careful. Be sure to create a system restore point before doing this. I tried this on one of my laptops and I was able to hide my external hard drive. This will NOT delete the recovery partition and it should stil work perfectly if you ever need to use it. Also, when it says to create a new DWORD value, create a DWORD 32 Bit Value.

Go to this key:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer

In the right hand pane of the Explorer key create a new DWORD value named
NoDrives

To hide any specific drive, enter the number corresponding to your drive letter
as shown in the list below:
i.e. to hide drive C: enter 4

A=1
B=2
C=4
D=8
E=16
F=32
G=64
H=128
I=256
J=512
K=1024
L: 2048
M: 4096
N: 8192
O: 16384
P: 32768
Q: 65536
R: 131072
S: 262144
T: 524288
U: 1048576
V: 2097152
W: 4194304
X: 8388608
Y: 16777216
Z: 33554432

Also, be sure to log off and log back on to your computer for the changes to take effect.