Fresh install

[newtr0n]

I have like 5 partitions and i want to delete them all and just have one big partition to install win 7 in it. What's the best way to do it?

Heres a screenshot from partition wizard:

http://img686.imageshack.us/img686/2851/asdxe.png

Also i dont want a recovery partition.

Thanks for your help.

 

[pparks1]

Boot from the Windows PC. When you get to the screen for setting up partitions...just delete the 5 you see and create 1. I'd suggest going with 2. That way you can back up files and such from C: to D: Makes it really easy to format and start back over as you can leave your D drive intact during the rebuild.

 

[Night Hawk]

In order to delete the four existing partitions actually seen plus the 16gb of unallocated drive space you have the option of booting from either the 7 dvd and using the drive tools on that or a 3rd party partitioning program's live cd. That looks like a 250gb drive from the screen you posted.

Once you have wiped the drive entirely and elect to create a new larger single primary with the 7 installer note that a 100mb partition will be created in front of C during the normal install. That holds the repair tools now seen like tha automatic startup repair option. In order to avoid seeing that secondary partition the alternative would be using GParted Live a Linux drive tool where you burn the live image to a cd-r.

That will use up the entire drive space available to create one large primary and format it to NTFS when selecting that from the File System selection list. 7 will then install without the 100mb partition onto the new primary.

The option for spliting the drive into two partitions with the second used for storage or backups would be one thought to prevent any possible loss of files if your machine is hit by a virus while consideration for a second hard drive internal or external depending on if this is a desktop or laptop would allow for creating system images of the C OS drive.

The 10gb recovery partition presently seen indicates this as being a system where Vista came preinstalled.

 

[gregrocker]

If that hidden partition at the first of the HD is EISA, it will require a special DISKPART Force Delete Override command to delete. Try Partition Wizard first.

If not EISA, then all 5 can be easily deleted as suggested by using the booted Win7 DVD Custom>Drive Options, then create New and Format before install.

You might want to make your Recovery Disks first in case you ever want to return to Factory condition to sell or service warranty. Is it Vista on there now? If it's Win7, then you need a clean copy Win7 DVD of your version to clean reinstall - using Restore disks will just recreate all the partitions as from factory.

 

[Night Hawk]

GParted will remove factory recovery partitions as well while you wouldn't expect to see that done in the Disk Management tool. Other programs may run into problems removing it however.

One example seen lately was restoring an older Vista laptop where the owner wanted a second storage partition on a 200gb drive. The 7.5gb recovery partition there was easily removed as well as everything else for the repartition to take place. Once some 50gb was reserved for C and the rest for storage the older version went onto a clean primary.

gregrocker is quite correct about using a set of recovery disks made up from the 10gb recovery partition for the version that was preinstalled as far as how those will see C reformatted and all the prepackaged softwares placed back on C. That wouldn't restore the original partitioning theme however since any set is intended to restore the OS primary.

From repeated installs of the 7 betas, RCs, and now the retail 7 as well as setting up and removing dual boots with the previous versions of Windows the fastest way to clear off all present partitions and see only one main primary created has been with GParted whether on a live cd or written to a usb flash drive.

That will also eliminate the 6-8mb of unallocated drive space reserved for dynamic volumes typically used for server application when partitioning with the MS drive tools found on any Windows installation from XP up. This is why the suggestion for GParted is being made for not wanting any extra gaps or repair partitions present once done.

The personal option for the 1tb host drive here was to allow the 100mb partition using the MS drive tools for the host drive on the new build assembled for 7. I could tighten up the partitioning further with GParted in seeing the few mbs of drive space reserved gone by simply expanding C into that space using the Linux drive tools but found that unnecessary with the larger drive in use.