How do I recover OEM disk partition?

cumulusjames

cumulusjames

cumulusjames

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Hi I wonderd if anyone could advise me. I recently installed windows 7 and during installation there were 2 options for where to load the OS, thre was 50gig wich said "dell OEM partition" and 450 gig for the rest of the drive. After I had installed the os I noticed that my hard drive shows as being 450gig and I cant find the missing 50gig.

Is there a way to find that 50gig partition and recover that space to my hard drive?
 
hmmm, if its a recovery partition it makes me wonder if I should be messing with it. But then when I use tun up utilities it often shows me old back ups and restore files to delete so I assume that they are on the bit of the drive I can see, and as this is a new os loaded on the bigger partition without dells assistance surely that space is just lost space?

Anyhow I'll try that partition manager thing. I was not sure if you could do it in th dos bios thingy (when you press f8 or something when your pc starts). God I just read this back. I sound like a women.
 
philtorrens said:
It's a hidden recovery partition and that's why you can't find it. You could try using Partition Manager (free) to delete the hidden partition providing it can see it.
Click to expand...

Ok well I tried that, It showed actually 2 partitions which seem to be remanents of my old OS as they showed as last being modified June last year. I deleted them, but the option to move them would not work, so the space is still lost!
 
I'd likely keep it unless you really need the space. It is your only way to reinstall whichever OS the dell came with. So if you have say win 7 retail, you could restore the old OS and keep your win 7 if you go on to sell it. It does no harm unless you really need the space.

Edit: You can use the disk manager in windows to merge into the now free space.
 
Crowort said:
I'd likely keep it unless you really need the space. It is your only way to reinstall whichever OS the dell came with. So if you have say win 7 retail, you could restore the old OS and keep your win 7 if you go on to sell it. It does no harm unless you really need the space.

Edit: You can use the disk manager in windows to merge into the now free space.
Click to expand...

I do need the space, there seems to be 2 partitions, one 15gig one which I cant seem to touch for love nor money, then a 50 gig bit which I have deleted and converted and is now called disk d by my computer, I just need to figure out how to merge it with the main disk c so I will give that a try.
 
Well I deleted the partition in windows disk manager, but it did not give me the option to expand the main drive so the space has disappeared again! The space is now empty and unallocated but i cant seem to recover it to the main drive. It has completely dissappeard now! does not show in partition manager or anywhere on my pc :(
 
Last edited:
Did you do this step

Now right-click the graphic of the C partition and select Extend.?

It should show as unallocated space if I remember right.
 
Ok have managed to recover a lost partition in Partition master. now have the following:

C: OS 450.70 GB
D: Recovery 15.00 GB

So 465.70 GB showing on a 500 GB hard disk. Where is the rest of it?
 
cumulusjames said:
Ok have managed to recover a lost partition in Partition master. now have the following:

C: OS 450.70 GB
D: Recovery 15.00 GB

So 465.70 GB showing on a 500 GB hard disk. Where is the rest of it?
Click to expand...

you will not recover the space using any MS utility, you will ahve to use a linux boot disk and partition manager to sort it out, this may trash all your data...

a 500GB drive will format to 465gig ish... there is not more space....

replace the drive when its 85% will and stop worrying...
 
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