Can't remove recovery partition

Question

My laptop originally came with Win 8.1, the 64Gb drive has a 15Gb recovery partition. I've since upgraded to Windows 10 so I don't think this recovery partition makes much sense - anyway I could do with the space!

This question guided me to the Win10 disk management tool: How to join two primary partitions windows 10

However right-clicking on my D: drive I get no options other than 'help' in the context menu...

Is there an easy way I can delete D: so I can extend C: onto it? Why is it not being permitted?

As a side question, what are the random unnamed partitions of a few hundred Mb each?

Answer 1

WARNING YOU CAN REALLY MESS UP YOUR COMPUTER IF YOU DON'T FOLLOW THESE INSTRUCTIONS CAREFULLY, IF YOU DON'T FEEL COMFORTABLE DOING THIS THEN I SUGGEST YOU DON'T, ALSO I SUGGGEST YOU BACKUP ALL YOUR DATA BEFORE YOU BEGIN

1. go to start and type cmd (this is called command prompt)
2. In command prompt type diskpart and hit enter
3. type list disk and hit enter
4. From the list of disks find the one you want to work with (I believe in your case there is only one so it should be easy)
5. once you find the drive you are looking for type select disk'numberofdrive'
6. now type list partition and find the partition you want to work with
7. once you have identified the partition in question type select partition'numberofpartition'
8. now type delete partition (WARNING ONCE YOU DO THIS THERE IS NO GOING BACK) and hit enter , if it says "cannot delete a protected partition..." use delete partition override (Note you will also have to repeat these steps with the partition in front of the recovery partition if you plan on extending the system volume)
9. once it is finish type exitand hit enter
10. go back to diskmanager
11. right click on the C: volume and click extend

Answer 2

To delete a partition that refuses to delete, use diskpart in the Command Prompt for this operation:

1. First launch Command Prompt, or press Windows Key + R to bring up Run. In Run, type "CMD" without the quotes. Make sure you are Admistrator.

2. Command Prompt should pop up. With command prompt open, type diskpart

3. In the User Account Control, either sign in as an admin if you are already not or press yes if you already are.

4. Another command prompt window should come up, this is the Windows Disk Partition Editor. In this command prompt type list disk.

5. A list of all your disks should come up.

6. Then, select the disk you are using (in this case disk 0) by typing select disk 0. Disk 0 should be selected.

7. Then, to list partitions, do list partition it will then bring up a list of all the partitions. Then to select the partition you want to delete, find the number of the partition (like Partition 1 or Partition 2 or whatever partition one of your recovery partitions are) and type `select partition '. This will select your partition.

8. Then, to delete the partition that you cannot delete in the graphical user interface, type 'delete partition override'. This command force deletes the selected partition (the recovery one you selected).

9. Repeat steps 7-8 for the other ones.

10. In the screen you started with (out of the command prompt now) you should notice a black volume on your C: Drive. Right click on the and click New Simple Volume.

11. Proceed

Answer 3

Your Recovery partition is listed twice. This means that somehow Diskmanagement is getting confused and you won't be able to use it to work with this harddrive.

Luckily there are other tools available too that will work.

I recommend downloading Hiren's Bood cd, burn it to cd or make a bootable USB stick, then boot from the newly created media, and use one of the partition tools available there to do the task you want to accomplish. Also keep in mind that there are some other partitions on the drive with no volume. It is hard to see on your screenshot if they can be deleted or not, but keep in mind that if you decide to delete them, windows may no longer boot and a reinstall is required. This is not the case for the D partition though, but any partition marked as System should not be removed.

I think the 260 MB one should be kept, but again, its hard to see from this screenshot, and thus its better safe then sorry.

On second thought, it seems that all these partitions are completely empty. It is likely that the C partition is also the system one, but again, the screenshot does not provide me with that info.