anyone tryed deleting a dell recovery partition?

buzzlightweight · 1 Apr 2012 at 09:24

When I bought my laptop it came with two 500GB HDD's, and OMG are they slow!!!!

I have been used to using SSD's on my pc's for a while now but I thought I would give the dell HHD's the benefit of the doubt....... As soon as I got my laptop out of the box and switched it on I was horrified to find it took nearly 5 minutes to fully boot up after the initial set up! Running of programmes and starting up of programmes was slow as well so……….

I deleted all the crap that comes with dell pc's and laptops and stopped certain this from starting up at boot, but it’s still took too long. I made the obligatory recovery back up disc’s and a bootable usb, re installed the os to factory settings, removed the HDD and inserted my new crucial 256GB SSD, booted from the usb and installed windows and all the dell settings.

My laptop is now supper fast and runs like I want it to but I hate the fact I have lost 20GB of valuable space to something I do not need as I have the original HDD, back up disc’s and a bootable usb.

Has anyone managed to delete the recovery partition without too much hassle? I have made a windows recovery disc and a partition wizard disc and am about to attempt to remove it but just wondered if anyone had any thoughts or experiences?

I will let you know how I get on

buzzlightweight · 1 Apr 2012 at 10:24

ok it worked

would anyone like a tutorial?

andy_mk3 · 1 Apr 2012 at 10:39

Pretty sure I just deleted mine using disk management in windows.

buzzlightweight · 1 Apr 2012 at 10:47

andy_mk3 said:
Pretty sure I just deleted mine using disk management in windows.

if the partition is set to active then you will more than likely not beable to recover from deleting it, it will result in having to reinstall windows.

Disco Boy · 1 Apr 2012 at 10:49

I just re formatted my drive and then did a clean install from scratch using a w7 disk. (this was necessary because my laptop came with 32 bit windows installed.)

andy_mk3 · 1 Apr 2012 at 10:59

buzzlightweight said:
if the partition is set to active then you will more than likely not beable to recover from deleting it, it will result in having to reinstall windows.

Come to think of it, I may have actually done it when I re-installed windows

Ben Cole · 1 Apr 2012 at 11:05

First thing I did when I bought mine was blitz the disc. I knew I would never want to 'recover' Dell's bloated setup so had no hesitation in getting rid.

buzzlightweight · 1 Apr 2012 at 11:09

Disco Boy said:
I just re formatted my drive and then did a clean install from scratch using a w7 disk. (this was necessary because my laptop came with 32 bit windows installed.)

I would have done that but my laptop has a brigade of function buttons, touch func buttons, and a host of software that is NOT included on the software and drivers disc supplied by dell!

I did exactly what you did (1st time round) put my SSD in installed windows, installed the drivers from the disc BUT dell failed to include the right GPU drivers, quickset etc. so I then reinstalled from the usb deleted what i didnt need or want and changed some start up programes

buzzlightweight · 1 Apr 2012 at 11:11

i think i was given a duff software and drivers disc if that is the case, it had nothing of any use on! i couldnt even get the ethernet driver to install!!!

Disco Boy · 1 Apr 2012 at 11:12

buzzlightweight said:
I would have done that but my laptop has a brigade of function buttons, touch func buttons, and a host of software that is NOT included on the software and drivers disc supplied by dell!

I did exactly what you did (1st time round) put my SSD in installed windows, installed the drivers from the disc BUT dell failed to include the right GPU drivers, quickset etc. so I then reinstalled from the usb deleted what i didnt need or want and changed some start up programes

My DELL didn't come with any CDs at all. All drivers for DELL machines are available on their website, you put in your service tag and it lists your drivers.

buzzlightweight · 1 Apr 2012 at 11:21

Disco Boy said:
My DELL didn't come with any CDs at all. All drivers for DELL machines are available on their website, you put in your service tag and it lists your drivers.

true, i have all my drivers from their site but i tried to download all my 3rd party software but their site does not work, it wouldnt let me get past the bit where you put your service tag in!

needless to say after a little rooting around i am not the only person to have this issue. i may have a go at it again some time but for now i am happy to reclaim my lost SSD space

thenewoc · 1 Apr 2012 at 16:58

Might you want to create a backup of that recovery partition first using something like clonezilla just in case you want to put it back?

buzzlightweight · 1 Apr 2012 at 18:28

thenewoc said:
Might you want to create a backup of that recovery partition first using something like clonezilla just in case you want to put it back?

like i said i have the original HDD with the recovery partition, so i could plug that in boot up and create recovery disc's or usb. i also still have the recovery disc's and usb so thats three types of recovery..... im fine