partition problem

Hi, can anyone help. I had to restore my inspiron using recovery disc. I now have 3 partitions on my HDD. I cannot access storage as maximum partitions on disk have been reached.see attachment i have one partition c drive for the OS. One recovery partition and one called OEM. I cannot format or add new partition to utilise 527GB of storage. I cannot delete OEM or access in any way. I have tried re-installing windows 7 but could not load all utilities from dell. Is there a simpler way. help please!

 

Am I correct in understanding that you cannot create a "new volume" with the unallocated space? You should be able to have 4-5 partitions max.

You should be able to make a new volume by right clicking over the unallocated portion of the drive.

If that doe not work, you can "extend volume" on C: and it will let you absorb the 527GB. Try making a New Volume first though.

p.s. - you don't want to delete the OEM partition. OEM partition is where your windows repair is stored.

 

You can have a maximum of 4 primary partitions though the last one can be divided into many logical partitions - You should therefore be able to create at least one more.

Follow anseio's instructions and it should be OK, though the OEM partition actually contains system diagnostics which you may also have on a disc while Recovery contains the windows restore which you really should have copied to disc.

 

hi yes you are correct, I cannot make a new volume, I have tried allocating but wizard tells me maximum partitions have been reached. I cannot extend the OS volume to absorb the space either. Any other ideas? Thanks in advance.

 

Hi,
have tried to allocate new volume to unallocated space but wizard will not allow. It informs me maximum partitions are already in use. I have tried to extend the OS volume but it is greyed out and not accessible. I have made recovery discs, i used them and the HDD is as shown in the attachment. Any other thoughts, Thanks Mark

 

Strange. Which options are greyed out and which are available?

I don't have an answer, but I wonder if one or more of your partitions could be out of alignment. My next step would be to use GParted (the Gnome partition manager) which is more powerful than the Windows one. That might show up something.

Need more clues.

 

It would be nice if you can take a screen shot and paste here...

 

hey guys,

so did anybody find the solution for the problem? i have the same issue. my Win7 crashed and I cannot reinstall it - i cannot access the partitions (except OEM reserved & recovery).

need that really urgently

 

Then try creating partition using any partition softwares!