Using Recovery Partition

I've just bought an N53JQ-SX150V and would like to get rid of the "D" partition which was factory installed. I've never partitioned a computer before, and am unsure of the best way to remove the partition without interferring with the recovery partition...

Should I use the recovery partition to re-format the laptop creating just a C partition?

I've never used a recovery partition before either, so I'm a little paranoid about messing it up (since the User Manual states that the recovery partition cannot be restored if you delete it). The User Manual lists three options for using the recovery partition:

1. Recover Windows to first partition only
2. Recover Windows to entire HD
3. Recover Windows to entire HD with two partitions

Since the last two options involve the entire HD, can anyone please advise whether they delete the recovery partition.

Any advice would be most appreciated

Thanks!

 

Leaving the recovery partition intact is generally a good idea, esp with today's huge HDDs since it doesn't take up a significant percentage of space, due to the substantial reduction in reinstall time compared to using the DVDs for W7 and Asus drivers. Many power users here may still want a single system partition rather than split a OS/data arrangement, however.

You should be able to use the partition software in W7 to merge the two together into one - just copy over any data to the OS partition first.

 

I agree to not over writing your recovery partition as it will really make it easier to recover your system if you have a problem.
And if you need the space that it takes up then you would be better off adding a larger hard drive.
But if you want to do this then first check and see if you are locked out of the recovery partition first. As some are locked and you cannot copy anything out of them without unlocking it first.

Or take and have it make the DVD backup disk for your system and then you can use them if you need to recover.
After that you can use Windows Administrative Tools to set the partition to take up the drive to it's full size. But be careful as you can also wipe out everything on your Hard Drive if you do this wrong. But if you follow the instructions it is not hard to do.

 

Thanks for the replies.

I have used Disk Management to get rid of the 'D' partition and allocate the contents to the 'C' partition.

Rest assured that I have no intention of deleting the recovery partition! I was asking about the reformatting options because I want to ensure that I don't accidentally kill it. Am I correct in assuming that I should use the first option 'Recover Windows to first partition only' when I need to re-format the computer in the future (and then use Disk Management if I want to create additional partitions)?

Thanks again!

 

Yes, but this should maintain your current 1 partition scheme so re-allocation wouldn't be needed.

This option will also obviously delete all your applications and data, since you now have everything in the system partition.