DATA partitions on branded machines

slipd

slipd

slipd

Soldato
Joined
26 Feb 2004
Posts
4,800
Location
Hampshire, England.
Hi guys,

I've got two laptops that are almost out of storage space on the c: drive but I still have over 50gb of 'available' space on the d: drive which houses the system recovery stuff from the manufacturer. I don't intend to ever restore back to the manufacturers settings, I have my own os discs and I can use my laptop licence keys if anything did ever go wrong so I could restore my machines from there :)

I basically just wanted to double-check that I'm not going to affect my healthy c: partition by formatting the d: partition? Once I've formatted the partition I intend to delete it and expand the free space into the c: partition.
 
assuming there is nothing on it its not something that is going to cause an issue...

back up your C before trying to resize it incase it goes wrong...
 
Only problem is if the MBR is on the D partition. Unlikely though. IIRC Dell used to put the MBR on a hidden partition at the start of the drive.

Anyway, you can fix the MBR easily enough with a Windows install disk.
 
Hey,

Some people do move the MBR to the back of the partition but if its labelled Data then you should be okay...

Stelly
 
You can delete them and use disk management to extend the C partitions. If for some reason disk management refuses to cooperate a GParted Live CD will do the trick

In the unlikely event either laptops do not start after the format/resize, do a startup repair with the Windows disk (assuming Vista/7)
 
To be safe, take a full system image every time before you mess with partitions.

Macrium Reflect is a good choice.
 
Definitely! I never usually backup but because its a branded machine, I have.

I ran out of space in the location I was saving to and the remainder of the backup was saved in another location. That shouldn't be a problem should it, when recovering? I know Macrium has the facility to save your backup in chunks.
 
sam.wheale said:
Definitely! I never usually backup but because its a branded machine, I have.

I ran out of space in the location I was saving to and the remainder of the backup was saved in another location. That shouldn't be a problem should it, when recovering? I know Macrium has the facility to save your backup in chunks.
Click to expand...

Dunno, I would have made sure I was imaging it to an empty drive.

Before taking an image I'd do the following..

Disable system restore
Run CCleaner slim
Delete any folders from the C:\ root that aren't system folders, eg AMD, Intel, Nvidia etc etc
cleanmgr just to be sure

Remove everything from Desktop / Documents / Photos /Videos if they're on C:\
 
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