Partition or Volume - Delete

This may be going back over older material so I'll apologise in advance.

Just to explain my problem.

I have recently installed windows 7 onto a PC with two hard drives, a 40GB and an 80GB. One drive now contains Windows 7 and the second Windows XP. I want to remove all of the info from the second drive as I no longer need to be able to boot up with both operating systems. The problem is that no matter what I try I cant seem to format the drive or remove the volume. I just get messages telling me I cant do it when I try. I've tried carrying out the steps in this thread, but they don't work either. Any suggestions would be very welcome.

Hi, sorry for not getting back sooner - powercut knocked out my connection for a while. XP was installed first on the 80GB drive in the PC. The second 40GB drive came from another PC and that is now the one that has Windows 7.

Thanks - I'll give it a go and then get back to you.

I have a problem. I do not have the "Administrative tools" option. Does it exist in a specific windows 7?

Hi Brink, I replaced my OEM C: drive on a Sony Vaio F Series notebook. I installed the old HDD in a external enclosure & it works fine.

I tried to delete the hidden recovery partition (8GB) using Disk Management but when right clicking, all I get is "Help" while it works fine for the other partitions & lets me delete them. I then tried elevated command & diskpart following your tutorial, same problem! Diskpart deleted my other partitions but quits when I try to delete the recovery partition.

That Sony recovery partition is really protected.

This is nuts! Thanks for your help.