Laptop PC has 7 partitions, how can I free them up?

[Josh Hearn]

Laptop PC has 7 partitions can I free them up

2-3 year old Dell laptop I bought used. I upgraded to Win 10 on release day early that day AM eastern time. PC was shipped with 8.0 and than updated to 8.1 prior to me purchasing it. I just saw that I have 7 partitions after I was digging around on the PC. Is this a factory thing or did the prior owner make a bunch of partitions. I've owned the PC a while now again ever since Win 10 first release to the public. It is running amazingly fast for a 2-3 year old PC. I keep it maintenanced and I'm protected from malware and other various threats.

Here are the partitions listed in order

Healthy - EFI System Partition - 500 MB and 500 MB free
Healthy - OEM Partition - 40 MB and 40 MB free
Healthy - 490 MB and 490 MB free
Healthy - 475 MB and 475 MB free
Healthy - 450 MB and 450 MB free
Healthy - 11.69 GB and 11.69 GB free
Healthy (Boot, Dump, Crash, Primary Partition) - OS (C NTFS 284 GB and 46 GB free

This is kind of a surprise as I haven't done any custom backing up. I'm pretty safe with my PC so I'm only using System Restore and nothing else currently. So I really need help if I can. If I can remove these or keep 1 for whatever I really want this HD space back. Thanks in advance

 

[Simmo_2000]

Re: Laptop PC has 7 partitions can I free them up

I would say the primary partition is your windows and files (obviously)
The 500mb efi partition is system created by windows and shouldn't be deleted even it if appears empty.
The 40mb oem partition was created by dell and at one point contained the dell diagnostics program, press f12 on boot for the menu, select diagnostics, usually runs a preboot assessment from motherboard rom, then loads the full diags from this partition. This should be ok to delete
The 3 x 400mb plus partitions look like they were efi partitions at one point, but from the look of it have been replaces, so can probably be safe to delete.
The 11gb partition probably had the dell recovery software at some point, which you could gave used to reset the laptop back to how it came from the factory, but according to your list appears empty, so could be deleted.

In short, keep primary os partition, keep efi partition, if diags works keep oem partition, rest should be ok to go.
Of course make a backup first.

If you have the time, the best way would be to start a clean win10 install and at the partitioning phase, delete everything, the windows will create what it needs to run (efi and primary boot partitions).

Hope that makes sense and helps you out.

 

[Chintan Gohel]

Re: Laptop PC has 7 partitions can I free them up

2-3 year old Dell laptop I bought used. I upgraded to Win 10 on release day early that day AM eastern time. PC was shipped with 8.0 and than updated to 8.1 prior to me purchasing it. I just saw that I have 7 partitions after I was digging around on the PC. Is this a factory thing or did the prior owner make a bunch of partitions. I've owned the PC a while now again ever since Win 10 first release to the public. It is running amazingly fast for a 2-3 year old PC. I keep it maintenanced and I'm protected from malware and other various threats.

Here are the partitions listed in order

Healthy - EFI System Partition - 500 MB and 500 MB free
Healthy - OEM Partition - 40 MB and 40 MB free
Healthy - 490 MB and 490 MB free
Healthy - 475 MB and 475 MB free
Healthy - 450 MB and 450 MB free
Healthy - 11.69 GB and 11.69 GB free
Healthy (Boot, Dump, Crash, Primary Partition) - OS (C NTFS 284 GB and 46 GB free

This is kind of a surprise as I haven't done any custom backing up. I'm pretty safe with my PC so I'm only using System Restore and nothing else currently. So I really need help if I can. If I can remove these or keep 1 for whatever I really want this HD space back. Thanks in advance

try this article: How to combine multiple hard drives into one volume on Windows 10 | Windows Central

 

[Br1t]

Re: Laptop PC has 7 partitions can I free them up

Since you are now on Windows 10 you no longer need the OEM recovery, you can always reinstall the OS from an MS ISO.

I would also recommend wiping everything and doing a clean install for the maximum space available. Deleting the extra volumes and merging them will just add the dead space to your primary partition.

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