Keep recovery drive working while repartitioning

I have a new laptop with win7 installed. The C drive has 600 gig and I would like to break it into two 300 gig partitions. I tried it with the built in partition tools and was able to do it. The problem is this bumps the recovery partition back one spot and the recovery utilities do not work unless I boot of the repair disc. I had to do a restore to get things back to normal and working.

There was a post several months ago with something similiar but the person was changing alot around and I got lost in the explanation.

I believe I need the recovery partition to end up between the two 300 gig partitions.

Can anyone explain how I might be able to do this?

Thank you in advance.

If you were already able to restore to factory condition, then is that method alone sufficient as a backup?

I'm not sure why dividing the C partition would affect a separate Recovery partition but if you tried running it from boot and it wouldn't run then it may have only lost its link to run from Windows. Try booting it to see while you are still testing things. Back up your files.

The more modern method of recovery is saving externally a Win7 backup image to reimage the HD or replacement to exactly how your system is now: Backup Complete Computer - Create an Image Backup

If you decide that an image backup and your Recovery Disks are sufficient then you might want to not worry about your Recovery partition, or even recover its space.

Many tech enthusiasts find a Win7 installation DVD to get an install without bloatware which is actually better than getting a new computer nowadays. Heres how for your consideration: re-install windows 7

Thank you
I am able to do the backups. That is how I got the recovery working, by restoring from an image.

I wanted to divide the C drive so I can put all data on that partition and just back it up after the initial image of the whole drive is done. I would also like to keep the recovery partition working.

Perhaps windows keeps track of the partition position rather than drive letter. If so then when I add a partition in the middle windows would loose the recovery partition.

Is it possible to shrink c drive then expand d drive ( the recovery partition) then nab the extra off the end of d drive for the extra partition? That way the recovery partition will still be in the same position and hopefully keep working.

Thanks

Please post back a screenshot of your full Disk Mgmt drive map and listings, using Snipping Tool in Start Menu.

What specific functions of Recovery stopped working after you subdivided your C drive, and how did that physically affect your Recovery Drive? It shouldn't have moved it at all.

I wil post later. In middle of something else.
Thanks

This is with everything working.



This is after the change when recovery stops.



On the backup recovery page if I try to creade a repair disk I get the message not a valid parameter.
If I select recover from a saved image when the computer restarts to load recovery environment I get a message unable to continue, missing device. Use repair disk.

If I pause the boot and select F11 (recovery) it doesn't work.

I have to boot off the repair disc to do a recovery.

When I reload from a saved image everything works again.

Thanks again

Thanks for your replys.

Here is a snip of the drives set back to factory.



Apparently I unknowing changed the drive to dynamic.

When I shrank C: drive and created the new partition it said it was making the partition dynamic but apparently it meant the whole drive.

So... starting from scratch how can I take half the remaining space in C: drive and make a new partition/drive for a data drive and keep everything working?

As you can tell I am new to win7.

Thanks again for any help.