Not happy with my partition setting, can i change?

Stephen

Basically yes, but if you let Windows 7 format the drive it will create the 100mB partition. You can use another tool to format is first, like GParted.

Now, what you see is a 100MB (not GB) partition. What do you see "going to it"?

That 100MB partition holds your boot loader and system files. If you have to run a repair install it will go much faster when you have it.

Hey   thanks for the reply

using the windows7 disk management app it shows: (C  100GB NTFS. Healthy(Boot,Page File,Crash Dump,Primary Partition)..it doesnt allow me to expand, delete or format it.

System Reserved(D  831GB NTFS. Healthy(system,Active,Primary Partition)
again i cannot format,expand or delete this.

Not got a clue what i should do

Stephen

Hello Stephen,

It depends on the version of Windows 7 that you have. As a good rule of thumb a minimum of 30GB is recommended for Windows 7 *(possibly more for Windows Ultimate).
http://tinyurl.com/obma6q
　
If you want to run Windows 7 on your PC, here's what it requires:
1 gigahertz (GHz) or faster 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor
1 gigabyte (GB) RAM (32-bit) or 2 GB RAM (64-bit)
16 GB available hard disk space (32-bit) or 20 GB (64-bit)
DirectX 9 graphics device with WDDM 1.0 or higher driver
Some Additioinal information with regard to the "system reserved" Partition in Windows 7 setup:
If you do not want the 'System Reserved' partition to be created and existed, the best way is to stop Windows 7 installation process to create the partition when installing Windows 7.
In Windows 7, the feature (100 MB partition to store WinRE files) is installed on all computers if the OS is installed on hard disk with single partition scheme, or unallocated space (space which not yet been partitioned) on the hard disk drive.
Thus in order to skip or avoid the 100M partition to be automatically created during installation, here’s a few rules to follow when choosing where to install Windows 7 to:
1. Do not install Windows 7 to a hard disk that not yet been partitioned or to unallocated space (When install Windows 7 to unallocated space, no warning pop-up or confirmation is asked, and setup will straight away and directly create partition 200 MB of disk space as special partition without notification).
2. If possible, try to create all the necessary partition(s) and format the partition(s) before attempting to install Windows 7.
3. If you’re installing Windows 7 into a new hard disk, or a blank hard disk with no partition defined yet, or if you must delete all existing partitions to start afresh, chose Drive options (advanced). Delete (if applicable) unwanted partitions. Then, click New to create the single partition or multiple partitions according to your own preference.
When prompted with dialog box saying "To ensure that all Windows features work correctly, Windows might create additional partitions for system files", click on Cancel button. Optionally, to be double confirm, Format the partition before selecting it to install Windows 7
Finally, if you want to do some research; there are also some great articles, instructional videos and such to help with your Windows 7, installation, migration and upgrade decisions located at our Springboard site:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/default.aspx
Thanks again and good luck!
John M.
Microsoft Windows Client Support

I can only say what I'd do, download a copy of The Ultimate Boot CD, burn to a disk, boot the computer with the disk in the drive and go to HDD tools and select wipe, just wipe the drive, then reinstall, sorry but really it is the fastest and easiest way to straighten things out, when you install windows just create the partition that you want to install windows in, let it do what it wants, afterwards you can go to Control Panel, Administrative Tools, Computer Management, Storage, Disk Management and partition the rest of the drive like you want

Indeed your configuration seems strange, mainly if you didn't have the partitions created beforehand. The "System, Active, Primary Partition" is the one that holds the system files and that is the 100MB partition when you have one. Teh "Boot, Page file...etc" is the boot partition, that is why you can't delete it (and shouldn't)

As you apparently don't have anything but the OS installed, I advise you to start over. Format your HD with, for example, GParted, then do a clean install of Windows 7. That should create one partition with everything.

Let me know if any doubt

DO NOT FORMAT the HDD, it will not remove the ntldr.dll from the MBR, with tht in the MBR you can't install anything there without errors

http://www.partitionwizard.com/


However, it is wiser NOT to format the entire HDD as a single C: partition:
you will need to learn how to create drive image backups, and you'll need
a second partition to write those drive image files to.

(Writing to DVDs is just too slow, imho.)

You can also change the default folder for saving your private files,
which you should do anyway if intend to do drive images of C:

Restoring a drive image means that all C: files created or modified
AFTER it was created, are necessarily lost (obvious, if you think about it).


Hope this helps.


MRFS

100GB is plenty for Windows and programs, why not leave it as is. You can store your backups, video, music, photos and documents on the larger partition.
If that doesn't suit you, boot the W7 dvd, start custom install, disk tools and delete both the 100GB and 900GB partitions and continue the installation.

If you delete the existing partitions and start over, there will be nothing left. You can then use Windows 7 setup disk itself to format the HD and proceed with a clean install.

Again, I understood you didn't have anything in the drive you need to save, once you delete the partitions it will all be lost.

It is advisable as MRFS stated to have different partitions for the system and data. If you have to reinstall your OS from an image you can reinstall the system partition and don't have to mess with your data.

On the other hand, it is not recommended to have all your data in one drive without a backup, even if in a different partition. If you have a hardware failure, your drive and your data will be gone, no matter in what partition they are. Have an external HD or even an internal where you can backup your data.