Just received XPS M1210 how to remove "RECOVERY" partition

Hey guys I just received my XPS M1210 a couple of days ago,I opted for the 120GB HDD because I had a 80GB HDD on my old desktop and it filled up quickly.

Now I noticed that there are two partitions

drive C: which is where Vista and everything else are
this drive has 84.5GB free out of 99.7GB

then there's drive D: named "RECOVERY" this one has 6.4GB free out of 9.99GB free.


Now my question is how do I remove this partition and join that 9.99GB onto the OS partition?

I've looked everywhere online and they were all relating to XP and not Vista which is what I have.

Now when I go in "Computer",I can right click on the D: and I have the option to "format" it

OR

I also found inside Control Panel>Administrative Tools>Computer Management>Storage>Disk Management

i can right click on the D: partition and it gives me options to format or "delete volume"


but will either of these put those 9.99GB onto the OS partition?




p.s
funny thing is in the owner's manual it tells you how to remove "Dell System Restore" but it is for Windows XP,heh


your help is greatly appreciated.
-sam

 

Under Disk Management, you will want to delete the RECOVERY partition. Then select the main partition and use the expand function to restore the space.

 

I dont see the option to extend to be possible



can anybody else put their input on this?

 

The screwed you by putting the recovery partition before the Vista partition. My only idea was Delete then Extend as well

 

Wouldnt the recovery partition be C: instead of D: if they did that then?



Is delete and extend as simple as it sounds?or do I have to reinstall Vista when I want to extend?

 

I've had this problem before and the only remedy (if I wanted to keep the OS intact without reinstalling) was to purchase another HD and use a USB to IDE (or SATA connector) and then use Casper or Acronis software to clone the partition I wanted to the new HD.

I then cloned the new drive back to the original and had a spare HD (which is really necessary when you need it !!!)

Having said that it looks like the software "Partition Magic" may well do what you want also.

Good Luck

 

You have a few options:
(1) Keep the recovery partition (r.p.) as is.
(2) Delete the stuff on the r.p. and use the space for other stuff, but keep the partition separate.
(3) Delete the r.p. and add the space to the main partition
(4) Nuke both partitions and reinstall Windows.

Personally, I'd do option 1. The recovery partition has saved my butt before, when I installed software and it broke Windows, I could easily go back to where it was before.
If you want to do 2, you can probably just turn off sys. restore in Windows and delete the data on the partition and start using it for personal files. Some people like to keep some data on a separate partition. I don't think it matters much.
If you want to do option 3 (add the space to the main partition), check out a program called gparted (google it). You can make a CD and boot from that and mess with the partitions. It's like partition magic but free. But it's probably easier to do option 4, reinstall Windows. Be sure to keep the media direct partition though.

 

Where the drive is on the partition has no bearing on it's drive letter. It can be whatever the OS dictates.

Unfortunately, you can only "extend" if the extra space is to the right of C:\ physically, and the D:\ you have is obviously to the left.

Your best option is going to be to backup your Vista partition (using Ghost, Archos, etc), deleting D:\, Deleting C:\, making a new partition to encompass all the free space, and restoring your backup.

Or, for an easy solution, delete D:\ and then just recreate D:\ as a blank drive. Use it to store music and important documents. That way, if C:\ ever becomes corrupted or something, you can reinstall Vista and still have a place to stick files you want to keep. I keep a similar (but smaller) partition for this reason.

 

question for swarmer --

Would it make any sense to copy the stuff on the recovery partition to a DVD? Either as files or as a disk image?

Then the partition could be used for other things.

But would that DVD be as functional as the recovery partition?

 

When I got my m1210 I used my winxp installation cd to wipe out everything on the hard drive. I don't know what's on the recovery partition but dell's resource cd has all the drivers you need for a clean install.

 

I ahve same HDD configuration,,,and i want to get rid of Recovery
infact i want to seperate partition for data,,,, and I found the only solution to delete or remove recovery,,,, and then create a partition

I dont want to reinstal OS at this moment

Recovery is left to the OS,, so is there any chances of malfunctioning of OS after deletion of D,, or if simply delete its contenets and use for data storage.

I have Acronis Disk Director 10 as well,, but it failed to make a logical disk in OS,,, dont know much of reformatting etc,,, so can anybody guide the best solution step by step. I would prefer to remove recovery but dont want to re-install Vista

Thanks

 

partition magic