Too many partitions
Hi:
ATI 14. Win 8.1 Pro
Please see snip image. Where did these come from, and can I safely delete any of them.
Thank you.
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A typical Win 8.1 install will have 2 recovery partitions the System C partition and in your case there is a D partition for Data which may have been created by the manufacturer or builder of your machine. Some installs have OEM partitions as well and there can and are others. The FAT32 partition is a mystery. I know of no need for such a partition however it is obvious it was created by a user or possibly an application or device installation. You need to do some research into that. Is there any data on that partition?
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http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh825686.aspx
The first partition contains the WinRe.wim file used for Windows repair. The fat32 partition is the Efi System Partition (ESP) and it contains the BCD and other files neccesary for booting your system. The third most likey contains another WinRe.wim that has been customized by the manufacturer or may have been created if you used the Windows Store to update to Windows 8.1. Removing or altering any of them will make your system not boot because the partition layout won't match the BCD. You should just leave them alone.
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Gentlemen:
I appreciate very much the timely and excellent responses. I’m not sure about the questions because this laptop has been back to the seller twice and motherboard and memory have been replaced, the motherboard for physical damage and the memory for the recurrent and elusive blue screen of death.
In addition, I’ve reinstalled Windows 8.1 64 Pro from scratch several times in the past month or so and several times I used Acronis backups to solve various problems such as blue screen of death or Windows acting strangely, etc. There are 2 physical drives, the SSD for the operating system and a rotary hard drive D: in the 2nd slot. This is a M-Tech M 8600 Clevo P150 SM device new just under a year ago.
I think I’ll take Joey’s advice and leave things alone but I don't see how to mark this question closed.
Thank you.
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In my experience with installing or reinstalling Windows, it is safest to disconnect all other drives during the installation to ensure all the partitions are created on the correct disk. Also use the diskpart clean command to reinitialize the drive prior to installing Windows. This will remove all partitions and formatting from the disk ensuring there are no stray system partitions left over from the last install.
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