Vista - Manufacturer Partition, can it be deleted?

On my laptop I have, in common with many others, a 11 Gb pertition, that could be used to restore the laptop to its original state. It is very unlikely that I would ever want to do so, as I have since installed Vista x64 from a retail copy.

Is it possible to delete this partition and extend C: into that space?

What would be the pitfalls , if any?

Hello bgowers,

The only bad effect this would have is that you no longer have the backup.

You can delete it from Disk Management.

~Lordbob

Unless you have a Vista Disk dont even think about it

Lordbob,

yes i thought as much, thanks for the confirmation

I have a vista disk, z3r010, but having read this thread:

Partitioning Software

I'm beginning to wonder whether it is worth it, it does seem rather difficult...

yep.

turn on laptop
keep tapping F8
press enter on repair your computer
go to command prompt
type diskpart
sel disk 0
list vol
find the vol number
sel vol 2 (2 if thats the number of the vol)
del vol 2 (2 if thats the number of the vol)

and your done

Or you can use disk management...

Disk Management - Delete and Extend

~Lordbob

Or you can use the Acer recovery program to delete the partition.

Thank you all, it worked

but a different problem cropped up. The laptop wouldn't boot afterwards. No bootable devive found...

I re-installed Vista and still the same. I was just about to send the laptop to Acer when I thought i have one last try, I installed Win 7 x64 beta, that worked for some reason it boots normally.

The question: Can I install Vista on my other partition or must Vista be installed first?
Or, can I use my Vista disk to downgrade Win 7.

I don't mind Win 7, but for one it's bata and also I don't know what will happen in August. I'd rather do it now, before I restore programs and files.

Many thanks in advance

As vista and Windows 7 use the same boot method I'm not sure what would happen with an install of vista with windows 7 already present on another partition, technically It should work, but as Vista would not recognize the Windows 7 install you would probably have to do a start-up repair from the Windows 7 install disk to get everything working.

As far as I am aware there should be a continuous availability of a working version of Windows 7 until, and shortly after, the official release. The latest Unofficial releases of Windows 7 are valid until 1st March 2010, which is later that the latest estimate for the official release, The official public release candidate is slated for release during May this year and should also have at least this cutoff date.

Hope this helps

Thank you, Nigel

I quite like to keep win7 and take my chances, it seems better than vista

I am not keen to mess around much more anyway.

Many thanks

Bernard