Thank you for being a valued part of the CNET community. As of December 1, 2020, the forums are in read-only format. In early 2021, CNET Forums will no longer be available. We are grateful for the participation and advice you have provided to one another over the years.

Thanks,

CNET Support

General discussion

deleting partition to free space?

Jun 2, 2010 11:21PM PDT

i'm trying to free up some space on my netbook and i've come across this mysterious partition. the partition in question is called 'Healthy (Primary Partition)'. it has 4Gb, has no clear filesystem and appears to be 100% free. the partition is on my acer aspire one 531h netbook which is running windows 7. can i remove this partition without any damage to my operating system or netbook in general? also, if anything, what is this used for? thanks in advance for any help
for reference - http://i49.tinypic.com/2cmptfq.png
for reference 2 - http://i49.tinypic.com/2mze3w7.png (fourth one down in this one)

Discussion is locked

- Collapse -
Looks like the recovery partition.
Jun 3, 2010 12:30AM PDT

My advice is to not touch that. Many do, then complain about not being able to restore the machine to the factory load.

Some even forget to make the restore media!
Bob

- Collapse -
I already have a recovery partition?
Jun 3, 2010 5:27AM PDT

I don't know if you looked at the reference screenshots but I already seem to have a recovery partition. You could be right and my system requires two recovery partitions. Do you have any other ideas? Sorry if I'm being a pain.

- Collapse -
You have little to gain
Jun 3, 2010 6:35AM PDT

by deleting a 4GB partition, barely enough room to fit 1.5 hours of video.
Deleting it may cause you to have problems when the need to restore arrises.
I don't pretend to know how Acer partitions their drives but that could be a seperate restore partition.
About 2 weeks ago I used Acer tools to make a set of restore disks for a friend who recently purchased a new Acer.
What I found surprisingly was, that it actually created 3 factory restore disks and in addition, another disk for resoring malfunctioning installed programs and for restoring drivers.
This could explain the extra 4gb partition.
My advice leave it alone, mess with it at your own risk.

- Collapse -
Thanks a lot
Jun 3, 2010 9:12AM PDT

Yeah, that response seems to be pretty popular that it has something to do with a system recovery of some sort. I needed the space for an extra OS (Moblin), but I'm most likely going to invest in an external hard drive for media in general. Thanks for your help

- Collapse -
Not a pain.
Jun 3, 2010 8:19AM PDT

But makers are now having to hide the spare recovery content as more owners wipe out the machines. Even more complain bitterly when they can't restore the netbooks after they opted out of the external drives and media creation.

My advice is "don't touch that."
Bob

- Collapse -
Thanks.
Jun 3, 2010 9:05AM PDT

Yeah, you seem to know what you're talking about, and since I don't have much computing experience I'm going to have to trust you. The netbook is relatively new as well so I'd rather not be messing around with something that could mess it up. Thanks so much for you're help