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Upgraded to a larger SSD, but ATI2019 didn't expand C: drive!?

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I have been making full disk backups and this morning upgraded my 250GB SSD to a 500GB SSD. It went well enough, including that I caught the "Recover Disk Signature" checkbox which AFAICT retains the Volume ID of the disk which may be important to some applications. Anyway what ATI2019 did NOT do was give me any options to expand the C: drive to the new space. Or did I miss such? That seems a VERY basic need? I used instead MiniTool Partition Wizard to resize the partition and that worked.

Another question: the full disk recovery included these partitions: 40MB OEM Partition, 13.3GB Recovery Partition, and then the NTFS C: partition. AFAIK the first is a requirement of Windows 7 and my MBR boot method and the 2nd is for Dell Factory Reset. Since my intent next is to install Windows 10 over the 7 install, can I safely delete at least the Factory Recovery partition? Using MiniTool PW again? It seems I might have tried to do this in the past but MTPW resulted in a "no partitions found!" or maybe it was "Missing partition table!" or something.

TIA for any advice!

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Tom, the failed to expand issue is a common one and seems to occur when Acronis encounters a Windows Recovery partition positioned next to the C: OS partition that it doesn't move to the end of the available drive space!

The answer here is to move the Recovery partition to the end of the unallocated space on the new SSD using MTPW, then resize the C: partition to use the available unallocated space..

The 40MB partition could to be the Microsoft System Reserved partition used by Win 7 to store BCD (Boot Configuration Data) though it could also be a Dell Diagnostics tools partition as this is a Dell PC.  Either way it should be left alone!

The 13.3GB Dell Factory restore partition is normally after the C: partition, so could be before or after the smaller Windows Recovery partition.  If you have no intention of ever restoring the PC back to how it was shipped from the Dell factory, then the partition could be removed and the freed space moved to the C: partition.

Note: as you are intending to upgrade from Win 7 to 10, then Microsoft will probably create a new larger Recovery partition and leave behind the unwanted smaller one created by Win 7.  These partition tend to increase in size as new versions come along!

As with all such activities, having a good full disk backup before making any changes is recommended.

Hi Steve. I had found here mention of the Windows Recovery Partition needing to be at the end, and that confused me since mine precedes the C: drive. Now I've looked at my Spare Dell Latitude that I built a few days ago from scratch, and there AFTER the C: partition is the Windows 10 one you mentioned, though it is much SMALLER than the W7 Recovery that Dell makes, only 532MB.

I have scheduled a full backup of this W7 machine for tomorrow, then I will have to take a deep breath and have MTPW delete the soon-to-be-useless 13.9GB Dell Recovery Partition, resize the C: part, and hope when I upgrade W10 it will make its own Recovery partition at the end. Do you think this should work??

 

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Tom, for reference, see the image below from MTPW of my own Win 10 disk partitions (on my 1TB SSD).

MTPW shows the layout better than disk management including showing the recovery partition (Windows RE tools) which is not identified in disk management. 
Note: mine is a UEFI boot system hence has a 128MB 'empty' MSR partition followed by a 260MB EFI system partition before the C: OS partition. 

Hmmm now that I look at MTPW's view, it shows the Recovery partition as "Active & Boot" causing me to wonder if it's necessary to the boot process.

I guess I am only gonna know for sure if I delete the bloody thing.

 

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Tom, I suspect that if you remove the 13GB recovery partition your Win 7 will no longer boot!

I just booted a Win 7 VMware VM and like yours it didn't show a Windows recovery partition but did show the following in Win 7 disk management.

As shown, the C: partition has the System, Boot, Active flags set etc.

Running the reagentc /info  command shows that it also is the Windows Recovery partition too!

You, sir, are just an awesome resource--I know nothing of the reagentc command and would never have known how to surf on this! But mine too is as yours. That explains why I killed my drive as related in Post #1, and I'm glad not to try it again.

So I will leave it alone for the time being and see what my W10 installation does with it if anything. If W10 does indeed assert its own RE partition I will run the reagentc command again and see if it looks like it might be safe to delete the 13.29GB part at that time.

Very, very grateful for your interest and help here Steve--you so indeed deserve "Legend" status!

I am gonna save this thread in the diary I keep on my computing escapades!

 

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