Missing 200 GB of Hard Disk space after trying to create partition

[Mustang85]

Hello everyone.

I have an HP Pavilion DV6 with a 600 GB hard disk (Windows 7 Home Premium). Last weekend I tried to create a new partition, so I can save some of my files in case I have to re-install the OS or another issue.

Anyways I started the process, right click on C, clicked on "shrink volume", picked the size of the new partition (200 GB) and then "shrink". After a couple of minutes I got an error message, I dont remember exactly what was the error to be honest, it said something about I/O device error.


So after that and until today the size of my C drive changed from 576 GB to some 380 GB (as you could see, those 200 GB of the new partition I wanted to create are completely missing). I already ran chkdsk and some other software to try to recover that missed space without success.

Any ideas on how to fix this thing without formating the disk? Your help will be very appreciated.

I attached the screens of my explorer window, my disk manager window & windirstat (notice on disk manager how it says C: 381 GB above and then below the graphic shows 576 GB on C)

 

[richnrockville]

Welcome mustang85 to the windows 7 forums.

Sorry but windows only allows 4 primary partitions on a single drive.
My suggestion would be to delete the two hp partitions on the end and then after a reboot you should be able to then see your un partitioned space as you would then only have two partitions the boot
and your C.

Rich

 

[Mustang85]

Thanks a lot for your answer Rich.

I feel like a stupid by not knowing the 4 partitions issue. Anyways, I've done some research after reading your post and I have some doubts about the recovery partition. The partition is supposed to restore my laptop to factory, my question is: If I make a backup of all my drivers (say with Driver Genius for example), and then I have a problem with my Windows and need to re-install it again, wouldnt it be enough to just use the Windows 7 dvd and then use the drivers backup I made?

Why would I need to restore to factory in any case?

I would love to hear some opinions before wiping the Recovery partition.


Thanks in advance.

 

[ignatzatsonic]

You should make recovery DVDs before getting rid of the HP recovery partition. The recovery DVDs will do the same thing as the recovery partition---restore you to a factory state.

Do you have a regular Windows installation disc? As far as I know, HP does not include them--but you can make one by downloading a Windows 7 ISO from mydigitallife.info and then burning the ISO to a disk. You would need your 25 character Product Key to activate this new installation.

If you install from the burned ISO, you will NOT have the recovery partition and the tools partition.

If you restore from the recovery partition or from the recovery DVDs, you will have both the recovery partition and the tools partition.