Windows 10: Recommendation for a partition manager

I recently upgraded a Dell XPS 8700 to Win10 and then downgraded back to Win7 because of compatibility with games. I'd like to delete the 21.18 GB recovery partition and add that space of the OS partition (Disk 2), SSD. The recovery partition is for Win8 its no longer needed.





Could someone recommend a good partition management tool to help me do this? It doesn't necessarily need to be free but free is OK. Thanks.

:)

 

Windows 10 upgrade from 8.1 fails w couldn't update the system reserved partition

Andre, according to your EasyUS partition manager recommendation, I like to point your attention to this

Is EaseUS Partition Manager a Windows10 upgrade killer?

 

Can't delete partition

Since you cannot delete partition in Disk Management, then you can use DiskPart to delete a partition. try “diskpart.exe” in a run box. run the followingcommands:

list disk

select disk [ID]

list partition

select partition [id]

delete partition

If you are not familiar with diskpart, then I recommend free partition manager AOMEI Partition Assistant to delete partition.

 

I nearly always use the free GPARTED bootable LiveCD for the purpose.
GParted -- Documentation

 

Best Free Partition Manager for Windows | MiniTool Partition Free better than gparted which is for Linux at least in my opinion

 

+1 for Gparted, A partitioning utility is not OS specific and Gpart is a great example of such a utility.

I also use Paragon Disk Manager Suite. The partitioning component is free
Some Might Say It Is Better Than MiniTool ¦ Paragon Partition Manager 14 Free Edition

*Biggrin

 

Your Recovery partition is the System Active partition, so it has the boot code.
You need to move the boot code to [C] before you delete the Recovery partition or Win 7 won't boot.
See this tutorial by whs:
Bootmgr - Move to C:\ with EasyBCD - Windows 7 Help Forums

 

Thanks very much for the heads up about the boot code issue. Your response prompted me to educated myself about the boot manager/active partition. I also discovered that I was wrong about the recovery partition being Win8. It's actually Win7 and therefore I'm going to keep it.

I am wondering why Dell made the Recovery Partition so large, 21GB. Seams to me that's way bigger then necessary. Do you think they put both Win7 and Win8 systems there to enable an easy upgrade?

 

You're welcome.

I don't know if the Recovery partition would include W7 and W8.
It should recover your PC to the state it was in when you bought the PC.
From what I've read installing an OS can cause a factory Recovery partition to no longer work.
If you haven't already done so, you should create the recovery optical disc set or usb drive (if you still can).
That way even if the HD fails, you have some media so you should be able to recover and restore to a new HD.

If everything is working correctly and you're happy with the system now, i recommend creating a System Backup Image using a program such as Macrium Reflect free.
Then you could recover to the state the PC is in at the time the Backup Image is created.

I have home built PC's so i don't have and never had a Recovery partition.
I create Macrium backup images at least once per month so i can recover/restore, if/when needed.

If you used the Windows "built-in" tool to downgrade back to W7 that wouldn't guarantee that the Recovery Partition still works correctly !

Maybe someone here with the same or similar Dell pc as yours can comment on using the Recovery Partition ?
If not, you could ask Dell and see what they have to say.
From what i know Dell is the best manufacturer at supplying Recovery media when a user needs it.

I don't know how you can be sure the Recovery partition still works and know what it does, without testing it *Sad

 

Thanks David. I was able to access the recovery partition (F8 @ boot) and it appears to be intact and functioning. Not too surprised since I've never done a clean reinstall that would delete or change any existing partitions.

I do system images almost every week and alternate between storing them on a NAS or a onboard HD dedicated to backups. That said its still nice to be able to go back to a clean state in case an unnoticed problem spans several or all of your images.

I think I'll just leave well enough alone since this PC has Visual Studio, SQL Server, and hosts a local web site for my mineral collections. I'd rather jump off a cliff then reinstall all if that and set up the SQL databases!

UPDATE: Discovered a great way to made the recovery partition visible in My Computer. Simply run diskpart in a cmd window and assign the partition a drive letter. Bingo, it's now visible in My Computer. You can then see what there. When your done you can unassign the drive letter and is hidden again. There is a demo on YouTube. Just search "How to make a recovery partition visible in My Computer" If I find that I can shrink it down a bit I probably will.

 

It has 11 GB of free space, steal what you want but remove the letter when you`re done so nothing gets written there.

Also, check where the sata cable is going on the motherboard, C should be showing as Disk 0 if possible, not Disk 2.

Not super important, just something to consider changing.

 

Thanks Brian. While you were responding I looked at my recovery partition and confirmed that it does indeed only use 10GB. What I also found out was that the recovery process needs that empty space for extracting the files that are needed for a recovery. I've found posts from people who have resized this partition only to find out later that they could not use the recovery process. I think I'll just leave it alone until I do a clean install of Win10 maybe at some point in the future.