Question about hard drive partition

[Morgan210]

Hey guys,

Not really a problem but I'm curious about the way my hard drive is partitioned. When I bought my laptop it said I have a 320GB hard drive. Now, I know it's rare that you ever get the full 320GB, but I thought the 285GB I was getting was a little on the low side so I decided to check out what was going on in Disk Management. I saw the primary and recovery partitions which is what expected to be there; what I did not expect was this third partition that is marked only as "healthy, primary partition." So does any one have any idea as to what this partition is for? Also would it be safe to merge this partition with the primary one? The only hard drive shown in "Computer" is the C drive. Screenshot below. Thanks in advance for any clues.

 

[ignatzatsonic]

My guess would be an OEM tools partition of some kind.

They can be cranky to identify for sure.

Any clues in your documentation or start menu/programs?

I assume you bought it new and never made more partitions?

 

[Brink]

Hello Morgan,

The 11.48 GB partition is most likely part of your factory recovery to install the "Drivers & Software". The 1.46 GB partition is definitely the OEM factory recovery for Windows 7 itself.

If you like, you could add a drive letter to the 11.48 GB partition for it to show up in the Computer window to then be able to take a peek at what's on it. Afterwards, you could remove the drive letter.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/82994-drive-letter-add-change-remove-windows-7-a.html

Hope this helps,
Shawn

 

[Morgan210]

Any clues in your documentation or start menu/programs?

None that I can see.

I assume you bought it new and never made more partitions?

Correct. It's a Toshiba Satellite C655-S5212 if that is helpful in some way.

If you like, you could add a drive letter to the 11.48 GB partition for it to show up in the Computer window to then be able to take a peek at what's on it. Afterwards, you could remove the drive letter.

Thanks for the link. I had that same idea myself but when I right clicked the partition the only options available were "Delete Volume" and "Help."