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This is what I have in Disk Management:

Disk Management

I'm wondering what those partitions are on Disk 0, and if there's ways I can use them to increase the size of C: Seems like a waste.

Mark Cilia Vincenti
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  • Does this answer your question? [Are GPT reserved and EFI system partitions important?](https://superuser.com/questions/654798/are-gpt-reserved-and-efi-system-partitions-important) – gronostaj Jan 15 '23 at 08:31
  • @gronostaj not really, it's a bit different and I'm worried about the repercussions from doing something I don't understand well. – Mark Cilia Vincenti Jan 15 '23 at 08:34
  • The small partitions are not interesting and not worth the trouble. What's puzzling is that you seem to have an unused partition of 14.84 GB. Do you know how this happened? – harrymc Jan 15 '23 at 10:10
  • Absolutely no idea @harrymc. I only just noticed it because I am trying to see what I can do as I'm running out of space on C: – Mark Cilia Vincenti Jan 15 '23 at 11:36
  • Assign that partition a drive-letter in Disk Management and see if it contains any data. If it seems to be rubbish, you could delete it. But adding the space to C will require some dangerous disk acrobatics, as there are other partitions in-between. If you decide to go this way, I can put up an answer. – harrymc Jan 15 '23 at 11:39
  • Thanks @harrymc. What about those recovery partitions? Maybe I could delete those? I will try what you said but not right now as I'm going to be away from the laptop for a few hours. – Mark Cilia Vincenti Jan 15 '23 at 11:48
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    You could gain 1.3 GB at most by sacrificing the recovery partitions. That's not a lot of disk space - it's a matter of time until you'll run out again. Buy a larger disk. – gronostaj Jan 15 '23 at 12:52
  • @harrymc I'm having a spot of trouble assigning a drive letter to that 14.84 GB partition. If I right click on it in Disk Management, the only enabled menu option I have is 'Delete Volume...' – Mark Cilia Vincenti Jan 15 '23 at 16:34
  • I have no idea what it is, but Windows apparently can't touch it. Try a third-party partition editor to find out its properties and to decide if to delete it. You'll also need it in order to move partitions, because Windows doesn't do that. – harrymc Jan 15 '23 at 17:50
  • In that case, frankly, I would advise you not to go this way, because it requires some technical knowledge. Buying a bigger disk would be safer. – harrymc Jan 15 '23 at 18:06
  • @harrymc, I tried MiniTool PartitionWizard Free 12.7 and it names the partition as `*:Push Button Reset` and sees 14.63 GB used, with the file system being `NTFS` and type being `GPT (Recovery Partition)`. I think it's the OEM recovery imported from my previous SSD, with files from 2012 I will never use. – Mark Cilia Vincenti Jan 15 '23 at 18:06
  • This partition doesn't sound like a good candidate for deletion. You'll need to find another way of gaining space. For example by moving stuff to E: or F:. – harrymc Jan 15 '23 at 18:10
  • Why not, @harrymc? Why would I ever do a factory reset to an 11 year old laptop? – Mark Cilia Vincenti Jan 15 '23 at 18:26
  • Who said a factory reset? I suggested moving some folders to from C to have more free space. – harrymc Jan 15 '23 at 18:28
  • @harrymc What other reason is there to keep a partition copied over from an 11 year old laptop's original SSD that is there with recovery files from 2012 (Windows 7)? What could go wrong if I delete this? – Mark Cilia Vincenti Jan 15 '23 at 18:29
  • I don't know, since your situation is more complex than I thought, so my advice may just not be to the point. Sorry. – harrymc Jan 15 '23 at 18:42

1 Answers1

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Your SSD has about 200 GB in the main NTFS partition, which should be ample for the Windows OS files and some data. Changing the partition scheme is not suggested, since a mistake can make your PC completely unusable without full reinstallation of Windows, losing all your files. There are things to do to make more room:

  • Perform Disk Cleanup, both from Windows and with a third-party tool, such as Wise Disk Cleaner.
  • More space can be freed by removing old update files and backups, at the expense of being unable to revert to the state before updates, using DISM and SFC.
  • If you have another drive, move some or all of the default user folders, such as Music, Pictures and Videos, to that drive. This can be an external drive, though avoid flash USB drives, which can be slow to save data.

If you do decide to remove a partition and juggle the others around, make a full disk image first, so you have a way to back out of an unfortunate mistake. Caveat probatorem.

DrMoishe Pippik
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