[Ailadad]

Hey all,

OK, I bought a Gateway GT5412 about 10 months ago now. It comes from the factory installed with Vista , a Gateway recovery partition and all the other unnecessary junk software they put on their for you. So I have been able to clean it up and remove all the junk software. But the10Gb Gateway partition that stores all of your original Vista and software junk that originally shipped with the PC is still there. I have since ordered a Vista Recovery disk from Gateway which should eliminate needing this partition. I don't need to have this partition sucking up my hard drive space.

Without having purely a Vista OS disk is it possible to delete this partition and have the hard drive space lumped onto my C drive? As I said I only have the "gateway recovery" disk, which when used to its exact directions will actually re-install that partition, plus all the junk software.

I know it is possible to just delete the partition, but then I will still have an odd ball 10Gb chunk under My Computer, it just wont have the recovery crap on it anymore. I want to add that space to my C drive (my only other drive).

How does one do this with only a recovery disk, and/or is it possible to do without re-installing windows?

Thanks

[davehc]

As I understand it, you have a working copy of Vista?
Open the Control Panel and then and then Adminstrative Tools (in Classic view)
Select Computer management and then Diska management.
You should then have the option to delete D: and expand the Vista partition into the then available space.

[Ailadad]

i was able to delete the original partition, and then format it. But I do not see an option to merge it with the other (main) partition on my drive.

If you have to healthy partitions, how do you merge them together without losing data on one of them? Obviously the D 10Gb partition is blank, but the other partition has Vista and all my files on it.

Any ideas?

[TechB]

You need to delete the 10 GB partition and leave it as unallocated space. Right click the partition next to it and you should get an option to extend the partition. It's possible that the option may not exist. Vista's facility at shrinking/extending partitions isn't the best.

[davehc]

Correct. I didnt mention reformatting the deleted partition- that would just recreate the original problem.

[Ailadad]

OK, I have unallocated the partition, but extending my main partition is still not an option. I also do not see anything at all about merging, only extending.

There seems to be an issue with Vista there again.

With only the two partitions, one allocated and used as my C: drive and the other unallocated, it is not possible to extend one into the other!!

This is pretty essential, why wouldn't this work? Am I missing anything?

[TechB]

Vista's ability to shrink and extend partitions is very basic. You could try defragging C:. Depending on how the partitions are physically located on the drive it may not be possible to extend the partition using Vista's built in utility.

[mrss]

If you had disk imaging software and a second drive, you could make a backup image and store it on the the other drive. Then repartition the original one back to one partition and load the image. An image file is an improvement to the recovery CD's for archiving anyway. It's a copy of your PC now, with your apps installed, bookmarks, docs, photos. and bloatware removed, etc.

Another way is to buy a new drive, If it's Maxtor, Seagate, or Western Digital, they give you disk cloning software or you can download to for free (only works with the specified brand though). Clone the C: drive to the new disk. Boot on the new disk, and clone it back to the original C: drive, wiping out the unneeded D: partition. Keep the new drive as a backup or erase it and use as an extra drive.

[Ailadad]

Yeah Vista won't let me do it. I'll have to try the imaging process. I don't know if I want to go out and buy a drive right away, but I may, we'll see.

What would be a good imaging software to go with? (other than brand specific, I'm not sure at the moment what my drive is) Any other good freeware for that out there?

I have never done this process before. How is it possible to clone back to the original disk wiping out the unneeded partition?

[mrss]

It depends on your personal finances, but I consider hard drives relatively inexpensive, costing little more than a tank of gasoline these days in my locale. That's how I justify having a few drives sitting around with backup data.

I use Acronis True Image for image backup, about $35 USD from newegg.com. Maxtor's latest Maxblast 5.0 uses the disk clone part of Acronis, so I think that's a major endorsement for Acronis. Acronis will work with a drive on a USB port, which is handy. I believe Maxblast does too.

A cloning operation simply copies all the data from one drive to another, wiping out any partitions on the target drive. An imaging operation usually gives you the option to select a partition.

Norton Ghost is another image program, but I have no experience with it.

[Noyb]

Originally Posted by Ailadad

..What would be a good imaging software to go with?

Acronis True Image ... http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing...cts/trueimage/
and an External HD.
If I may say .. forget about Ghost.

It's best you have a second way to recover your computer(s) ... I Just had a set of recovery DVDs fail.
I also make a backup image of my recovery partition before I remove it.

[TechB]

I also recommend Acronis.

[Rich-M]

Make it 3 for Acronis!

[Noyb]

Have you got the hint about Acronis yet

Your recovery Partition can also be used to recover your OEM supplied applications.
Your Recovery DVDs can fail, in which case your next resort will be to use the recovery partition, from an Acronis backup.

Removing the recovery partition in someone else's computer makes me a little nervous.
I'm not sure how Vista will react to this .. I know it can cause some problems in XP.
If you really need the extra 10gig space, maybe you should really be thinking about a bigger drive.

[davehc]

Microsoft have appreciated a problem with recovery on cretin, sorry spelled wrong, certain laptops, and have released a stanalone recovery disk download. I dont know if it would work under your circumstances, but it is here.
http://neosmart.net/blog/2008/window...disc-download/