Digidave Posted July 14, 2008 Report Share Posted July 14, 2008 I just bought a new laptop computer & have a couple of questions about my HD. I've never owned a computer with a recovery partition before. First off, here is what I have.Gateway P-6860FX Laptop running Vista Home PremiumLocal Drive Volumesc: (NTFS on drive 0) 304.24 GB 228.44 GB freed: (NTFS on drive 0) 15.83 GB 8.56 GB freeNow, for the questions. I used MaxBlast 5 (Essentually the same thing as Acronis True Image 10) to do a complete backup of my C: Drive onto an external HD before I uploaded any software. So, the backup is straight from the factory. Can I just go ahead & delete that D: Drive now or does it contain my operating system that the computer uses, on it?If that isn't possible. I have the ability, in Vista, to shrink that D: drive but when I do that I wind up with 8GB's of unallocated drive space. How do I allocate that to the C: drive? Something like Partition Magic? Something free if at all possible. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
TheTerrorist_75 Posted July 14, 2008 Report Share Posted July 14, 2008 For a measly few GB of space I would just leave it alone. If you ever go to sell it the new owner will have the recovery option available. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
shanenin Posted July 14, 2008 Report Share Posted July 14, 2008 I would also recommend keeping the recovery partition. If you want to delete it, Gateway usually has an option to create a set of recovery and driver cds, make those first. As to reclaiming your space, partition magic 8(I use it regularly) does a great job. Gparted is a good free solution. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
shanenin Posted July 14, 2008 Report Share Posted July 14, 2008 I am not sure if the Maxtor Software has all the same features of Acronis. It is probably lacking. When you try and restore from the image that the Maxtor software created, you may not be able to resize the image to use your whole hard drive. It may only restore it to the 304.24 GB size. Then you will have to resize it again. It may just be easier to keep the recovery partition. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Digidave Posted July 15, 2008 Author Report Share Posted July 15, 2008 I am not sure if the Maxtor Software has all the same features of Acronis. It is probably lacking. When you try and restore from the image that the Maxtor software created, you may not be able to resize the image to use your whole hard drive. It may only restore it to the 304.24 GB size. Then you will have to resize it again. It may just be easier to keep the recovery partition.I think you're correct there. I had that problem with Acronis True Image 9. Thank you all for the advice. I think I'll just leave well enough alone. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Pete_C Posted July 15, 2008 Report Share Posted July 15, 2008 Likewise I recommend leaving the recovery partition alone. The few GB of space you gain is negligible on a drive of that size and you may find that you need it down the line.What do you do if the image disk you made turns out to be corrupt, if it gets damaged, if it turns out not to work when you finally get around to trying it? What if it does not do what you think it will do , maybe everything comes back read only, maybe it does not come back. Then you wind up contacting the manufacturer and hoping they still support your machine and have a copy of the recovery disk they will sell you ; or you wind up going out and buying a new copy of which ever OS microsoft is still selling (since XP sales will soon stop other than some OEM versions for install on low end PCs). and hope your machine is compatible and you can find all the drivers you will need.Yes, using Acronis, or Ghost or something to make an image is a great idea, but it should not be your only recovery path. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
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