Getting rid of the extra partitions from 8.1 Install

I KNOW this has to be in here somewhere but I've searched for "extra partitions" "recovery partitions" and a half dozen other things and I'm not finding it. So, if this horse has been beaten to death, just point me to where I SHOULD be............

Asus X99 Deluxe, 840 EVO 1TB. Windows 8.1 Pro 64-bit

This is getting silly. Installed 8.1. Put all the applications on 8.1. Configured 8.1 so it was at least fairly productive. Did SOMETHING bizarre and broke it to the point where nothing could get it back. So, I had to reinstall.

In with the disk, start the install and it said it couldn't install because the SSD was MBR instead of GPT. Tried the not UEFI DVD and it installed BUT IT CREATED TWO ADDITIONAL HONKING BIG PARTITIONS IN FRONT OF THE SYSTEM ONE. Rummaged around and found information that said if you create the partition for the system, the installation WON'T waste and extra 500 GB of space...

Went in with diskpart and created a 150 GB gpt partition. Finally managed to get installed. Put in the drivers and such so the thing finds the monitors and is functional... Checked and there are STILL two partitions (Recover Partition, EFI System Partition) after the system partition.

I have no intention of using bitlocker any time soon, NOR do I want to waste an additional 400 GB of space on the O/S. SO, how do I get rid of these "extra" (trying hard not to call them vulgar things) partitions and just have the one I created contain the O/S?

8.1 must be fantastic under the covers, 'cause so far it's been such a royal PITA I can't believe anyone would mess with it otherwise......

Different partition software acts differently from one another. If you are trying to extens or remove partitions I would try some third party software as windows build in partition manager isn't too powerful. Try this.

Link:
Free Partition Magic alternative and Partition Manager Freeware for Windows XP/Vista/7/8.

I just realized I'm a nitwit! I READ the disk thing as 100GB AND 300 GB....... NOT 100MB AND 300MB.........

Screw it. For 400 MEGABYTES I don't care..............

Stupid human trick!

Since I'm not using bitlocker, can I get rid of the 300MB one and extend the system partition so things are a bit tidier in the disk management window?

Since you installed Windows using UEFI, GPT style partition. There should be 4 partitions:
300 MB: contains Windows Recovery Environment
100 MB: contains BCD that is required to boot Windows.
128MB: unallocated MSR Partition, reserved by MS and hidden from disk management. Use diskpart to view this partition.
and C: Drive.

This layout is absolutely correct for UEFI type installation and it occupied 300MB+100MB+128MB = 528MB total, not 400GB

Yeah, I finally noticed that... I can ignore the 128MB one since it's not visible. If I can't get rid of 'em, I'll just have to learn not to see the other ones every time I go into disk management.

I now know that next time I install 8.1 I'll be VERY sure every byte on the disk is allocated so I don't get these things.

What's bizarre to me is when I initially installed 8.1, I must have done it with MBR 'cause I didn't have any of the whole "your disk is not GPT" mess, and when I was done and had a few things installed, I just went into EASEUS Partition master and blew away all the additional partitions with absolutely no problems. I have no idea why it worked there and not with GPT partitions, but it's not worth worrying about.