Drive partitions

Noob question 754 from G-Dub:
Why do I need a partitioned drive on my laptop? I think total drive space is 120Gb, so it's annoying that 30 or so of it is off on some D: drive which does fuck knows what (I presume some kind of backup for Vista?)

I have an external HDD that I'll use for backup but is that partition 100% necessary because of the way the OS works?

Likely your manufacturer placed backup files there. I assume you don't have an actual backup Vista disc?

Short story is no, the OS doesn't need it. Blow it away if you like, assuming you have access to an OS disc for later.

Thanks - there is something in there according to the drive space so should go have a look I suppose

And could always just save certain things over in that space too

Easy enough to get hold of install media later on anyway, so seriously I'd just blow it away. In Win7 install, when it asks you where you want to install it, on the bottom right is a 'Disk Tools' link or something. Click that, and there should be things in there to delete both partitions and make one big new one.

Sweet, cheers. Just waiting on the Microsoft Partner software to show up so I know I have Vista/XP/Office/whatnot discs sitting there ready in case of (highly likely) fuckup.

Drive partitions are a good thing though.

Umm on this computer I have two 80GB partitions and a 440. The 80's are for the OS / Applications (its dual boot) and I use the 440 for just data. That means if I have to reinstall (reimage) the OS for whatever reason I don't need to worry about backing up my data to an external HDD because it would be preserved during a reinstall / reimage.

But manufacturer recovery partitions can be gay. Thought they were normally hidden though?? (no drive letter assigned)

usually have drive letter assigned these days. if it's hidden, customers ask why their hard drive as 10-20gb less space than they got sold.

Right, PD that makes sense even to me.
Unfortunately it looks like this laptop is only an 80Gb harddrive (C is 63 and D is 10?) which is less than I realised so probably easier for me to dump everything in one as I'll probably use at least 60 of that. Need to be a bit smarter about what I store off on the external methinks

Looks like D is a manufacturer Windows recovery partition, so will get rid of that.

If room is an issue just upgrade the hdd of the laptop. I just bought a 7200rpm 250gig laptop drive for $140. You can get 160gig 5400rpm for just over a hundy.