Paritions and Volumes post clean install

rundwald · 29 Mar 2013

Perhaps I have misunderstood a comment I read somewhere, that a clean install removes partitions.

Sorting out troubles, the subject of another thread, a repairer effected a clean installation. Now, on viewing disk management (see att), it would seem the partitions are still there and sized much or identically as before, but not as they were before visible with a drive letter.

Are the partitions actually there still and accurate, and how do I gain access to the recovery partition, should i need? Please.

rundwald · 18 Apr 2013

Disappointing as no reply.

benjy206 · 18 Apr 2013

When your doing a clean install you will have to formatt all partitions. If you want the partitions to be gone and just one you will need to delete them and and make one.

Clean Install Windows 7

Kaktussoft · 18 Apr 2013

rundwald said:

Perhaps I have misunderstood a comment I read somewhere, that a clean install removes partitions.

Sorting out troubles, the subject of another thread, a repairer effected a clean installation. Now, on viewing disk management (see att), it would seem the partitions are still there and sized much or identically as before, but not as they were before visible with a drive letter.

Are the partitions actually there still and accurate, and how do I gain access to the recovery partition, should i need? Please.

You want to get rid of RECOVERY partition? If not.... what's the problem?

Kaktussoft · 18 Apr 2013

benjy206 said:

When your doing a clean install you will have to formatt all partitions. If you want the partitions to be gone and just one you will need to delete them and and make one.

Clean Install Windows 7

Not completely correct. Don't format all partitions, but DELETE all partitions. Even better do the diskpart clean command ("clean all" is not needed) ... it deletes the mbr as well

benjy206 · 18 Apr 2013

Kaktussoft said:

benjy206 said:

When your doing a clean install you will have to formatt all partitions. If you want the partitions to be gone and just one you will need to delete them and and make one.

Clean Install Windows 7

Not completely correct. Don't format all partitions, but DELETE all partitions. Even better do the diskpart clean command ("clean all" is not needed) ... it deletes the mbr as well

It's hard to know what exactly he wants. If he wants all the partitions to remain there just format them. But if he doesn't delete them, and just create one.

gregrocker · 18 Apr 2013

It explains how to decide which partitions to keep in the Note to Dell Owners at end of Clean Reinstall - Factory OEM Windows 7 so if you'd folllowed the tutorial you wouldn't have these questions.

With Dell the OEM Diagnostics partition is the small one at the front of HD. You should try running Diagnostics from boot first to see if it runs (and test your hardware) and if so leave that partition. However there's no reason to keep the Recovery partition since it will not run after a Clean Reinstall. So you should delete at least it and C during install, keeping only the OEM partition if in fact Diagnostics runs.

rundwald · 18 Apr 2013

I'll have to really mull over all those comments!

:) The thing is that Recovery used to be visible alng with other drives upon selecting My computer

gregrocker · 18 Apr 2013

Since Dell uses F8 on modern PC's to run Recovery, it is cut out after a reinstall since the F8 menu is also reinstalled with the OS and doesn't include the Dell Recovery link loaded at factory.

Therefore Recovery is wasted space and useless yet your boot files have somehow landed there so I'd follow the steps this time in Clean Reinstall - Factory OEM Windows 7 and do it over so you can get a perfect install.

Kaktussoft · 18 Apr 2013

gregrocker said:

I just told you that Dell Recovery won't run after Clean Reinstall so it can be deleted and should have been during reinstall.

Since you've likely ignored all the other Best Practices in a Clean Reinstall - Factory OEM Windows 7
I'd suggest you do it over so you can get a perfect install.

If not you can delete the Recovery partition now and resize C into its space using Partition Wizard bootable CD Resize Partition - Video Help.

@greg the RECOVERY partition is active and has the bootmgr and bootmenu now!