Is it possible to format the Recovery Partition & make it usable?

[nashama]

Hello,

My first post on this forum.

Here's my situation: I bought a new Fujitsu laptop which had Win7 Home Basic 64-bit. After making recovery DVDs, I replaced the Win7 Home Basic with Win7 Ultimate SP1 64-bit (because some of my softwares don't "sit" easily on Win7 Home Basic, they are more "friendly" with Win7 Ultimate/Professional)
Plz find the screenshot of the Disk Management view after I installed Win7 Ultimate.
1) What I do not understand is why Fujitsu needs the 3 partitions ; namely the 2GB , 1GB and a huge 14GB as Recovery Partitions?
2) Is it possible to format the Recovery Partitions & make it usable for storing my personal folders or add this 14GB to the existing C: drive or D:drive?
3) Am I wrong if I say this format & recovery option (point nr 2 above) was available ONLY during installation of Win7 Ultimate and cannot be done now when Win7 Ultimate is already installed?

I know the hard drive has huge capacity (750GB); I don't have to regret loosing a little space but I'm curious to know why the manufacturer needed 3 recovery partitions on one hard disk.
And will it be ok if I format these partitions and just make 2 logical drives (C: and D) the next time I reformat my laptop?

Regards

 

[Golden]

Hi,

If you don't require the recovery partition, then I would perform a clean install using this technique:

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/219487-clean-reinstall-factory-oem-windows-7-a.html

Regards,
Golden

 

[hArLtRoN]

If you have an installation disc then you don't need the recovery partition(s). They are only for people that don't have an installation disc readily available OR for people that want to set their PC back to factory default with all of the crapware still installed.

Also, fill in your system specs so others have an idea of what your computer is

 

[nashama]

Besides, clean reinstall suggested by Golden, aren't there other ways / options to format that 14GB and merge it with existing C: or D: drive? ....... some third party tools?

 

[hArLtRoN]

You can use the free MiniTool Partition Wizard to do what you want BUT the reason Golden and now I are suggesting a clean install is because right now your C: and D: drives are extended. It would be much simpler and easier in the long run if you just did a clean install.

 

[AddRAM]

Yes you can but I wouldn`t. It`s only 14 GBs and you may need it someday.

But if you have the rec dvds, I`d wipe the entire drive, split it in 2, C: and D: using partition wizard bootable cd and install windows.

http://partitionwizard.com/partition-wizard-bootable-cd.html

Have you tested your rec discs ?

 

[gregrocker]

It's a concern that the Active partition holding the System boot files doesn't also have the System Flag. We can be pretty sure it is booting the PC since Win7 partition is on a Logical volume which cannot hold boot files. But it should still say System and it always concerns me when it doesn't.

Since you've already reinstalled if you want to do it over and follow the steps devleoped here to get a perfect Clean Reinstall then that would probably be your best course given the dodgy flaggin of your boot files on a useless partition now anyway. Part of cleaning up the pathetic mess OEM's make of Win7 is to also streamline the HD and yours needs it.

 

[nashama]

Dear Gregrocker,

Do you mean the booting still takes place from one of those Recovery partitions and not from the C: drive? (I'm sorry I could not understand your post).

Regards

 

[gregrocker]

It's booting from the Active partition now.

 

[nashama]

The Active Partition, as evident from the screenshot, is the first 2GB,if I'm not mistaken.

So far I was under the impression that my Win7 installation took place on C: drive and thats where my machine boots from.

Plz bear with my questions ........ I'm just beginning to explore Windows7 and this forum has a wealth of information .

I really appreciate your patience and hope to gain something from your experience and expertise.

Regards

 

[gregrocker]

As I wrote in my first post Win7 cannot boot from a Logical partition which is what you've got for C. So it is booting from the original Factory boot partition.

I gave you my advice in post #7 on what I would do with your situation.