How to delete these partitions??

So I installed a SSD on my M14x and did a clean install of windows on it, now there is a partition called System Reserved, that is 100mb. What is this for and can it be deleted? Secondly I recently installed my stock 500GB HD into the optical bay using a caddy so I have dual hard drives (one SSD and one HD). When I put the HD in I booted up and there was another partition called Recovery which is 18.7 GB. I don't think that one is needed as I have recovery disks already. How do I delete it?

Thanks!

 

Hi Kawasaki. System Reserved is a system partition and contains files that the system use to boot up. You cannot remove it, because that will cause your laptop to be unable to boot

 

Oh okay well what about that recovery partition?? I am sure that can be removed but dont know how

 

You can delete it through Windows, just go Start > right click Computer > Manage > Disc Management and delete it. Or get Acronis Disk Director. I know that if your Windows Reserved partition is less than 102 MB or so then it won't boot.

 

Wont be deleting the Reserved Partition, just the Recovery Partition that is apparently connected to the HD not the SSD. I am guessing this recovery partition is useless if I already have made backup disks??

 

Fred is spot on! as long as recovery is on D you do not need it. When you made the backup disks did you use the utility built into win 7 or a 3rd party software?

 

Im actually mistaken, I am going to make a backup of windows on SSD as soon as I delete the Recovery Partition that is uneeded. Any recommendations on backup software or use windows backup? Use discs or my 500GB Seagate External HD?

 

Free Backup Software: Paragon Backup & Recovery (Advanced) Free Edition - Overview
I have used it for a few years, the builtin wizards are excellent.
Since you are backing up an SSD, you may want to wait for other recommendations, I am not abolutely sure if have to do a sector by sector copy (I do )or other tweak when backing up


I personally perfer to back up to external HD, if for no other reason a recovery goes much faster.

 

I just need to make sure I can delete this RECOVERY partition. My HD has three partitions, a 39MB OEM Partition, a 18.7 GB Recovery Partition, and lastly the normal space partition.

Edit: If anyone knows if this can be deleted please let me know. Considering there is already a 39MB partition on the HD I am guessing it is ok, but not taking any chances

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m14x/578658-official-m14x-owners-lounge-thread.html
There may be an answer burried here, If nothing else there is a link in the 1st post for clean install order, etc

 

The 18GB Recovery partition came with your OEM HDD and is the partition your machine looks to in the case of a factory system reinstall. When you make your recovery discs, they are made from this partition. If you have those discs made, then you can live w/o the partition and should be safe in deleting it.

I wouldn't delete the 100MB windows partition. It's a small amount of space and it has its purpose.

Generally, it's recommended to to a fresh install of your OS onto the SSD, but there are data migration tools that can do it for you. Which SSD do you have?

 

Oh believe me the SSD has a fresh install of windows and is optimized to the fullest, it is a Crucial M4 128GB. As far as the 18GB partition I will delete that and make a backup on my external Seagate hard drive. I know Josea recommended a backup software, what is your recommended backup software choice?

Edit: Main question is still with all the provided info can I delete the recovery partition?

 

Yes, you can delete the recovery partition, so long as you have made the recovery discs that come from it.

My preferred backup method is a Windows System Image to an external/alternate HDD. What I like about the Windows System Image is that it doesn't involve another program to do the same job, it's free, and each volume that is included in the system image can be mounted as a virtual hard drive.

I re-installed my OS a gazillion times this past year until I got the configuration that was perfect for me. Each time I started over, I made a system image of the OS about to be deleted, just in case that there was data that I would need to move over. All I had to do was mount the .VHD via Disk Management and I was able to get the config file for Stickies, or pull over the Rainmenter skins that I forgot to copy.

My truly preferred method is to make a system image immediately after getting the clean install of my dreams. This clean install has all of the settings/tweaks I prefer, as well as all of my crucial games/programs that don't handle reinstallation very well. I then rename that image folder so that Backup & Restore won't overwrite it during the next backup. From there, I let Windows make images on a regular basis that I can always go back to in a pinch. Should I ever need to truly start over... I can spend 30-45 minutes restoring from my clean install image rather than 8+ hours of reinstallation.

 

I'm not sure why the recovery discs are so important. I have a clean install of Windows 7 that I do a complete backup (using the Windows backup client) every week or so. Then I also have a default (key-less) Windows 7 disc in case I need to use it to boot. Clean and simple. No need for backup software or recovery discs or w.e

 

Currently making a backup image of the SSD with all my stuff on it onto my External HD. Unfortunately I can't make recovery disks following the completion of the image as my Optical drive is taken up by the HD and I have not yet bought an external optical drive Then I will delete that recovery partition. Sound good? So this is just like a better version of a windows backup

EDIT: Deleted the partition however now it just said there is 18.7 GB of Unallocated space on the HD

 

Now, since the partition was on the outside (left) of the disk, you cannot expand the volume that follows. There are tons of partition management programs that can do the trick for you. I, personally, know of GParted, but I heard something about Acronis doing it too?

 

Thanks, I will try GPArted

 

I was able to use Mini Tool Partition Wizard to resize it...however there is still 23MB of unallocated space?? It doesn't get rid of it when I try to expand again, anyone know what I should do?

 

Anyone know how to get rid of this last 23MB of unallocated space?

 

No clue, sorry.

 

How to Recover Unallocated Drive Space | eHow.com
May be of some help, if not can you put up a screen shot of Disk management (from step 3 in the link) I am sure someone here can fix that.

 

You don't want to delete system reserve partition. It is part of operating system and has critical files on it. If you have an external drive and it has recovery partition, you can delete it but don't delete recovery partition on your main hard drive (if there is any). You can always use that to reinstall your operating system if something goes wrong.

 

It isnt the system reserve partition on my ssd, I have clarified that already, this was the recovery partition on my HD that was uneeded, it started at 18.7GB of unallocated space after deletion of volume now its at 23MB and cant seem to get that last bit

 

This will work however it states, "The operation you have selected will convert the selected disk(s) to dynamic disk(s). If you convert the selected disk(s) to dynamic, you will not be able to start installed operating systems from any volume on the disk(s)(except the current boot volume). Are you sure you want to continue?"

 

Sorry not sure ^^^ about that message, but you were smart to ask!
I bet when you started you thought this would be easy. Since it is only 23 Meg I would probably just leave it alone and run some serious games!

 

haha yea...well im super ocd about these things so it bugs me, but maybe I will have to let it go if I can not find a solution. I might post on windows forums or something

 

Honestly? Move your data from the HDD, or make an image of the ONE volume (drive letter) that has the data on it - to another HDD. Wipe the HDD using the Clean command from diskpart.exe. This will remove all partitions from the drive. Restore from the image you made.

 

There is actually no data whatsoever on my HDD at the moment, so should I just clean command in diskpart.exe?

 

got it finally! sweet thanks a lot man!

 

Yep, the clean command is great! When I've done a Secure Erase on my SSD, I've had to use the clean command so that the program would work.

Glad you got it the way you want!!!