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General discussion

Removing partitions when installing Windows 7

Jun 26, 2010 1:44PM PDT

I have an HP desktop running on Vista with three drives - C (335 GB), D (10 GB) [recovery], and E (335GB). I'm planing to install Windows 7, but I'd like to eliminate the E drive - in other words, I want to merge C's 335GB with E's 335GB. However, I want to keep D.

My data is backed up so I have no problem with losing data, except for the contents of D.

Is this possible?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Discussion is locked

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We only lose what we don't backup.
Jun 26, 2010 8:22PM PDT

The best plan is to backup what you can't lose before attempting any partition work.

Now that the contents are safe you could look at GPARTED and see if you can delete the partitions you want gone and if the space is contiguous then you are done. Remember not to create partitions ahead of a Windows install as we can trip up the Windows Installer. Leave unpartitioned space, boot the 7 DVD and let it create it.

GPARTED is free and documented widely so all I can add is that if the space is non-contiguous you could shove it to the right with GPARTED.
Bob

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Ghost the recovery
Jun 30, 2010 3:04PM PDT

Are 3 drives logical HD?
C, D should be physically 1 HD
i perfer ghost D partition and delete every thing
make sure you know how to use the recovery partition image to re-install the old OS.