Windows 7 Installed on C drive and D/Recovery Drive

[awalls]

Ok-I was reinstalling Windows 7 on my Dell Inspiron 1750. I, by mistake, installed it on the D/Recovery Drive. Did not realize this until I went to install my MS Office again. After realizing my mistake I reinstalled on the C drive. Now I have Windows 7 on C and D. My recovery drive is completely full and I wanted to see if there is a way I can remove it off of my recovery drive. The one on my C drive is working great. I do know a little bit about computers. I looked over several forums online but nothing seems to be in just plain "cornbread english" for me to understand fully. Can anyone please help me....

Thanks,
Amanda

 

[bigmck]

Ok-I was reinstalling Windows 7 on my Dell Inspiron 1750. I, by mistake, installed it on the D/Recovery Drive. Did not realize this until I went to install my MS Office again. After realizing my mistake I reinstalled on the C drive. Now I have Windows 7 on C and D. My recovery drive is completely full and I wanted to see if there is a way I can remove it off of my recovery drive. The one on my C drive is working great. I do know a little bit about computers. I looked over several forums online but nothing seems to be in just plain "cornbread english" for me to understand fully. Can anyone please help me....

Thanks,
Amanda

When you reinstalled Win 7, did you do it from a DVD? If that is the case, there should not be anything on the recovery drive that you would need. Let me know how you reinstalled Win 7 and what is on the D drive.

 

[Bare Foot Kid]

Hello awalls, welcome to Seven Forums!



Before we make any specific recommendations will you please post a snip/screen-shot of the entire disk management drive map with a full description as to which drive/partition is which, so we can see what you have going on as there may be a fairly simple way to resolve the situation.

In the Windows start menu right click computer and click manage, in the left pane of the "Computer Management" window that opens click disk management and post a snip of that.

Be sure to post back with any further questions you may have and to keep us informed.


How to Upload and Post a Screenshot and File in Seven Forums

 

[awalls]

I installed on both drives w/ my re installation dvd that came w/ my dell package. I really appreciate any help...when i got to reading and it started talking about reformat this and repartition this...i started getting lost...any help is so great

 

[Bare Foot Kid]

Do you get a screen like this when the PC is first booted with 2 Windows 7 entries or does W_7 just start right up?

click to enlarge

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[awalls]

I get that screen w/ 2 windows 7. the top one is my c drive ( which I am using right now ) and the bottom one is my recovery drive

 

[Bare Foot Kid]

1) If you select the "other" W_7 will it start-up and run correctly?

2) Do you have a Windows 7 full installer DVD?

 

[awalls]

it will run correctly...im not sure it this is the full installation dvd or not. I am attaching a picture of what I have.

 

[awalls]

This is the disk that I have

 

[Bare Foot Kid]

That looks like it's a full installer.



The first thing I'd do is to make the C: partition as the "System, Active" partition so that is where the Windows 7 boot files will be stored; you can see that the D: partition is now that.

Have a look at this tutorial at the link below for a description of what needs done to accomplish this, this is a needed step to be able to remove the other partitions; that is what you want to do, correct?

Startup Repair - Run 3 Separate Times


After you have C: booting as "System, Active" post back and we'll discuss the next step.

 

[awalls]

This is what I have now....

 

[Bare Foot Kid]

Excellent, now what would you like to do, is there anything on that partition you need to save (backup) elsewhere?

There is a way to safely recover all that space into the Windows partition if that is what you want to do.

 

[awalls]

On the D partition? No-I have all my files etc that I wanted to keep already backed up on discs. It is just a recovery drive from what I understand so I don't know of anything on there that I will need.

 

[Bare Foot Kid]

Here's the deal, you're good to go now, some manufacturers tie their recovery disk (your disk) to the recovery partition and the disk will not work if the partition is removed.


Lets take this one step at a time.

In the Windows start menu click the computer button, in the window that opens right click the C: partition and rename it to anything you like so you will know in the next step which is which.

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[awalls]

okay i have renamed my c drive

 

[Bare Foot Kid]

Now in the Windows start menu type msconfig at the boot tab what do you have?

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[awalls]

I have attached what I have. I want to run off of the c drive and that is what I am currently using. I didn't know if I needed to empty the d/recovery drive since it is full. Do I need that. I really didn't even know I had it until today. You apparently understand all this better than I. What do I need to do. Is there are way to keep the d drive but empty the contents...idk. Thank you for all of your help

 

[gregrocker]

I see that BFK is helping you with this so I will bow out for now.

My only point is that if you overwrote D (confirm that) with your reinstall, had reasons to reinstall Win7, then you can consider deleting C and recovering System MBR into D so you can continue with setting up Win7, since your files are all backed up anyway.

 

[Bare Foot Kid]

We're making it so it will boot directly to the OS you want to keep without the boot menu at system startup.

You will still have the D: but it will be "out-of -the-way" for a while so you can figure out if the recovery partition is needed to use the disk to reinstall, so maybe you can remove it later.


Click to high-light the other entry and click delete then restart the PC and come back to let me know how it went.

​

 

[Bare Foot Kid]

I see that BFK is helping you with this so I will bow out for now.

My only point is that if you overwrote D (confirm that) with your reinstall, had reasons to reinstall Win7, then you can consider deleting C and recovering System MBR into D so you can continue with setting up Win7, since your files are all backed up anyway.

I think he has reinstalled to C: last so it's the newest.