How do I remove a doubly installed Windows7

I don't know what you can do about cleaning up the E: Recovery partition.
Maybe someone with Dell Recovery partition experience will post with advice ?

I would leave it as is for now, until you can find out for sure.
It is your Active System partition meaning it contains the bootloader.
It that gets messed up the PC won't boot without a Repair.

Also the Recovery might not work if you delete something needed for that.
It might not work now, after the "re-install", but I'm not sure.

Why was a re-install done ?

OK. Hope someone can tell me.
But E is not the boot drive, that's on the C.

I re-installed just to clear up everything on the computer & with that make it a little faster again. I've done that many times on different laptops, including this one. But this has never happened before! Instead of overwriting the old one, it kept it & installed a second one. I really don't get it...
And it happened with 2 laptops... The other one is also a DELL but it's 8yrs old & no longer a DELL on the inside (replaced hard drive & upgraded memory). That one, I need to clear as much as possible coz it's going for recycling -in that case, maybe deleting both will just clear the whole thing...?

In Windows Disk Management the Boot partition shows where Windows is installed and running from.
The System/Active partition is where the bootloader is located.
Windows won't start if the bootloader gets messed up.

If you're interested in moving the bootloader to C: see this tutorial:
Bootmgr - Move to C:\ with EasyBCD

I'm not suggesting you do it, just pointing out it is possible, if you're interested and adventuresome !

OK, the E is active. Confusing though, since in Disk Management it says
C: Book, Page File, Crash Dump, Primary Partition
E: System, Active, Primary Partition

But I'll leave it for now! And wait for someone to inform me on the Recovery files.


For the other laptop, which I'd rather format completely, would I achieve that by using EasyBCD to delete Windows 7? (I already deleted its double). Or would it leave Windows somewhere in the background & just not boot it? I might just try your last suggestion on this old one, don't care if it goes completely wrong!!
Last question for today! Time to get some sleep on this side of the world.

To format and re-install Windows on the other laptop, see this tutorial:
Clean Reinstall - Factory OEM Windows 7

DavidE said:

To format and re-install Windows on the other laptop, see this tutorial:
Clean Reinstall - Factory OEM Windows 7

Thanks. This is exactly what I did on the re-install, for both laptops. It's always worked & this time for some reason it kept the older version, instead of replacing it with a clean version...
One needs to be reset/reinstalled properly, so it can be used again.
The other I want to clear completely. Even if Windows is gone, it doesn't matter coz it needs to go for recycling so the emptier the beter.

Ztruker said:

If you no longer want the recovery partition, delete it in Disk Management then expand C: to encompass the now free space.

It's not that I don't want the recovery partition, it's probably a useful thing to have (no?). The issue I have is that it's completely full, mainly with Recovery files. Was hoping to just clear that. Or is this the only option?
I posted thumbnails from the system with how full each partition is and from the Wiztree program showing what's on there. C: is taken care of. Nothing been done about E: