Solved Need help re using D:(HP_RECOVERY) partition for my data

[NVGeo]

I have a new HP Pavillion p7 1235 with Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit

It came with a 1T hard drive with C: and D: partitions. The D: partition is the HP_RECOVERY partition. I want to use the D: partition for my data so I can create a system image independent of my personal files. After burning DVD's of the HP recovery stuff, I formated the D: drive for my use. It shows up as a "Healthy (Primary Partition)" in Windows Disk Management.

My problem is that when I use the Windows 7 built in "Create a system image" feature, it still includes the D: drive in the image and I have no option to deselect it. How can I keep D: out of the system image?

 

[Pauly]

Can you post a screenshot of your maximised disk management window
Start>diskmgmt.msc

 

[NVGeo]

Here is the requested screen shot of Disk Management.


Any suggestions will be appreciated.

 

[Pauly]

Have you tried unplugging external drive
If you select D as the target drive for the backup this unselects it on my machine, its only selectable if i choose to backup somewhere else

 

[NVGeo]

Pauly, thanks for the suggestions; however, if I understand your last post correctly I would have to target D: for my system image which defeats my entire backup strategy. I want to backup and create system images on my external drive; doing this on a partition on my internal HD would not protect me from a HD failure.

Please correct me if I misunderstood you.

Thanks again.

 

[Pauly]

Sorry was thinking if you couldnt unselect D then save there to exclude then copy over to external

 

[NVGeo]

Problem solved

Just thought I would post a solution I've found for my problem. It's not very elegant but it works.

Re my original problem, HP confirmed that they have designated D: drive as a system drive which explains why "System Image" included it with no option to not include it. They wouldn't tell how they did it nor how to change its designation.

So here is my solution:

1. Format the D: partition. (Gets rid of all the HP recovery data)
2. Shrink the D: partition as much as possible. (Mine ended up ~3 GB's)
3. Shrink the C: partition. (The max shrink allowed brought it down to ~480 GB)
4. Add a new partition in the unallocated space resulting from shrinking C: ( was not able to figure out how to combine the unallocated space from shrinking D: with that from shrinking C:, so there remains ~14 GB unallocated)
5. Move my personal data to the new partition.

RESULT: Now when Windows creates a system image I get to choose whether my new partition with my personal data is included or not.