Vista - Disk Management - Delete and Extend

Thanks Brink,

It worked Thanks for your support and quick replies

You're welcome Gene.

I went through the initial steps of this tutorial and found that the first volume listed in Computer Management is a "Disk 0" or perhaps Disk capital-oh O.

Its status displays as Simple Basic Healthy (EISA Configuration)

What is this thing? The overall readout for the computer's harddrive?

Do I need to be worried about it if I want to delete the D: partition?

Background: I'm brand new to Vista, having inherited an Vista-driven Acer 4520 with almost no data on it. I'm a seasoned XP guy, with two Dell Inspirons rendered worn out.

This Acer belonged to a relative who was apparently upgrading her technology shortly before she passed.

Associated question: would Acer have shipped the laptop with this partition already in place, or would she have had needed someone do it for her?

It's a 120GB harddrive, with 51.14GB on C: and 50.89 on D:, yet 9.76GB on this mysterious Disk 0.

I'd like to merge all three into one C:.

(Many thanks for your work here! VERY well done!)

Hello IvyGold, and welcome to Vista Forums.

It is the number 0 for "Disk 0".

Since you have a OEM (Acer) computer, the C: drive is Vista. The D: drive is the OEM recovery partition used to restore Vista back to factory default on the C: drive. The "Disk 0" partition is a hidden EISA partition used by the recovery partition to restore all of the included programs that came with your OEM computer.

Unless you have a set of OEM recovery CD to use instead of these partitions to restore Vista with when needed, then I would not delete or mess with them.

Hope this helps,
Shawn

Unfortunately the recovery discs haven't been found yet.

So are you saying not to mess with either non-C: partition?

My problem is that both C: and D: are 50 GB each, but I have an iTunes database of 55GB.

Following your instructions above wouldn't let me merge the D: GB's into the C:?

I'm OK leaving Disk 0 alone.


(And thank you for your help!)

IvyGold,

Do not touch the other partitions. If you do, you will not be able reinstall your OEM Vista again.


This may help with creating a set of recovery CDs of your own to use instead.

How to create ACER Vista Recovery disks

Excellent, I'll do the recovery DVD route before touching anything.

Why did Acer do this? Having two 50GB partitions destroys the usefulness of a single 100GB harddrive.

An afterthought: there's virtually no data on this computer, and thereby nothing to risk losing yet, so I was thinking about skipping getting up to speed with Vista completely and moving directly to the Windows 7 beta.

Would I be able to join the C: and D: partitions during that process?

(And of course doing so after creating the recovery DVD.)

Thanks again, I REALLY appreciate it!

IvyGold,

Yes, after you create and test the recovery CDs to be safe, you can delete the partitions during the installation of Windows 7 in the Drive (advanced options) step.

Clean Install Windows 7 Beta - Windows 7 Forums


You can get Windows 7 Beta here with a product key for activation.

Download the Windows 7 Beta

Excellent. I think that's what I'll do.

Thanks again, and see you in the Windows 7 forum in a month or two.

I'll be looking forward to seeing you there.