Eliminate hdd partition
My new laptop came with three partitions, A "C" drive, a System Volume partition, and a backup of the original HDD software that came with the computer. I purchased a new hard disk with a higher rotation speed, backed up the old drive with a full backup on an external drive, but without the HDD partition (since I already made recovery disks). When I tried to recover the image of the two remaining partitions , the new drive would not boot, although all of the boot files seemed to be in the backup. I also had made a complete full backup including the hdd recovery partition. This image does work, but contains recovery files I don't need. How do I create a bootable image without the hdd backup files?
OS - Wondows Vista Ultimate
TI Home 2009, build 9796
On the new drive, after you restore the disk image and it boots okay, have you tried deleting the 10GB partition using Disk Management and then using the Extend volume... feature to resize C: to use the space?
I have not tried this. I was afraid that if I deleted the 10GB partition, it may contain some boot files which will prevent me from booting up. Do you think that's a valid concern?
I would worry more if you weren't replacing the main drive. Since there is only one drive involved and the source (original) will be safe, you don't have anything to lose by trying it. Also, according to your screenshot, Disk Management shows that Windows is using the C: partition for everything (including booting).
Remember, if you delete the partition from the new drive (after the restore), the source (original) drive will still be intact and unchanged.
After the 10GB partition is removed, you won't have access to the Dell Restore files, but that should be it.
I'll try it; thanks.
It appears to have worked fine. Thank you for your help.