Help with partitions

[Frandaman]

Guys,

I need your help once again. I’ve just recently imaged everything from my HDD to a new SSD drive. The migration is a success and my PC is now blazing fast (I can’t believe I’ve never done this upgrade earlier) Anyway when I look in disk management I can see that there is a partition in my SSD drive which takes up 11gb of space and has about 110mb of data in it. This partition is not showing up in “my computer”. The only thing showing up is the larger partition (about 226gb) containing the OS, Programs etc etc.

My question are:

1 is there anyway to merge this small partition to the larger one?
2 It won’t let me delete the small partition in disk management. Why?
3 I would much prefer this 11gb of space to be included in the main partition as I only have 88gb left on the main part of the SSD. How else can I merge it?

Relevant system specs are

Windows 7 Home 64bit
P67 intel mobo
256gb OCZ Octane SSD

Any help is appreciated.

Fran

 

[ngrego]

I know for sure that Windows 7 needs about 100MB of space for the system so you will need to leave some space on that other partition. Otherwise yoy can merge the two. The only thing you need is a partition management tool to do it for you. I personally like using gparted (Gnome Partition Editor) which is free. It's a linux bootable "live CD" software with a GUI so you can use a mouse. But any other similar software you can find will do the job as well.
Just resize the 11GB to 200MB and let the process complete, then resize the large partition to fill the remaining space!

 

[smorizio]

before you remove it check on the vendor web page to see if that there as the garbage collection/trim and fitness part of your brand of ssd firmware. some ssd like intel will say it 128g in size but only format out to 110 megs in side the missing size is used for when the ssd ages and garbage collection. some ssd depending on there firmware might format out to 128g with two partion. one a garbage collection. if you do remove it see if there are and setting need tobe changed or that normal for your drive.

 

[Hawkeye22]

I thought cloning a HDD to a SDD is bad for performance. A clean install is recommended for SSD's.

Also that partition is the windows reserved partition. I'm not sure what will happen if you delete it. I think it's used if you set your drive up as a dynamic disk.

http://www.mydigitallife.info/hack-to-remove-100-mb-system-reserved-partition-when-installing-windows-7/

 

[Frandaman]

I know for sure that Windows 7 needs about 100MB of space for the system so you will need to leave some space on that other partition. Otherwise yoy can merge the two. The only thing you need is a partition management tool to do it for you. I personally like using gparted (Gnome Partition Editor) which is free. It's a linux bootable "live CD" software with a GUI so you can use a mouse. But any other similar software you can find will do the job as well.
Just resize the 11GB to 200MB and let the process complete, then resize the large partition to fill the remaining space!

Thanks for the response. I had a look at your suggestion and it seems like the way to go. Unfortunately it is a little too fiddly for me. I am not too technical you see Anyhow it looks like the only way to go at the moment so I'll have to consider doing as you suggested.

 

[Frandaman]

before you remove it check on the vendor web page to see if that there as the garbage collection/trim and fitness part of your brand of ssd firmware. some ssd like intel will say it 128g in size but only format out to 110 megs in side the missing size is used for when the ssd ages and garbage collection. some ssd depending on there firmware might format out to 128g with two partion. one a garbage collection. if you do remove it see if there are and setting need tobe changed or that normal for your drive.

The SSD supports TRIM. And it is enabled when I checked... The 256b formatted to a total of 237gb. Thats 226ggb for the main part then another 11gb on the other. I'll have to look into that garbage collection thing that you mentioned.

 

[Frandaman]

I thought cloning a HDD to a SDD is bad for performance. A clean install is recommended for SSD's.

Also that partition is the windows reserved partition. I'm not sure what will happen if you delete it. I think it's used if you set your drive up as a dynamic disk.

http://www.mydigitallife.info/hack-to-remove-100-mb-system-reserved-partition-when-installing-windows-7/

I used Paragon OS to SSD cloning software. It was so easy to use. I highly recommend it especially if you are not that good working with computers. I initially hooked up the SSD to a a Sata 2 port and got a WEI score of 7.7 I then hooked it up to a Sata 3 port then got a score of 7.9! PC is so quick. Boot up takes around 20 seconds... So I dont think there is any performance issues there.

I'll have a look at the link you sent. Thanks for the reply.

 

[Frandaman]

Best answer selected by Frandaman.