Two Empty Partitions?

pafao · 22 Apr 2010

So I recently got a new Toshiba laptop with windows 7 on it, and I was just poking around it. When I looked at the disk managment utility, I was surprised.
It had 4 partitions on it! Two I knew about, the main partition(~560GB, and the recovery partition (~1.5GB). However, there were also two other partitions (21GB and 11GB) that had no name, were labelled as "Primary Partitions", and were seemingly empty. The reason I say seemingly is because the disk managment utility says they are "100% free" but it also says that about the recovery partition. So if there is data on them, then Windows just doesnt recognize it.
So, my question is, does anyone know what these two partitions are? I have no options to extend or shrink them as I do for the main partition, all I can do is delete them. Would I be ok in deleting them or would I run in to trouble?

not so gray matter · 22 Apr 2010

They're likely ghost partitions used for system restore or something similar. Although, you do have a recovery partition so I'm not sure. If you're worried, do a clean install and repartition your hard drive, settings up your own recovery system w/ Windows Backup or a third party recovery software such as Macrium Reflect.

I have similar partitions on my main hard drive, mine are related to system restore and the OS X side of my hard drive (GPT). They also may just remnants of space that wasn't included in your partitions, I wouldn't worry about it.

gregrocker · 22 Apr 2010

Go to Control Panel>FOlder options>View tab and unhide System and hidden files, then browse those partitions, giving them a letter if necessary in Disk management to see their contents.

They might be related to Toshiba utilities so you should make an accounting of any of those which you depend upon, especially a network connection manager which usually serves only to get in the way but might require some reconfiguration if it is suddenly deleted.

I would personally delete each of the Toshiba utilities in Control Panel with a restore point so I have nothing to lose if one of those partitions contains them. I would also make my Recovery Disk set in case the Recov partition somehow become disabled by deleting those partititions, as it normally will after a Win7 clean reinstall.