Cleaning out "D" drive

[raccoon]

I recently upgraded to windows 8 from windows 7. No problem in doing so but one or two minor niggles which I have got sorted I hope.
Now then, my "D" drive which was or still has as far as I know got the factory settings on it which I guess is the restore points and things like that. It is 13.5GB and has only 2.33GB free on top of the first amount.
What I would like to know is can I format that drive and use it for windows 8 restore or has that been done by 8 when I upgraded to it. With only just over 2gb left there is not much room for restore points.
Cheers for any advice you can give.

 

[SIW2]

Restore points ( shadow copies ) will usually be stored on the same partition , C in your case. It sounds like your second partition is the manufacturer recovery partition, which would contain an image to take you back to factory settings , exactly as when you received the machine. That would be a factory image of windows 7.

can I format that drive and use it for windows 8 restore or has that been done by 8 when I upgraded to it.

You could, but you might want to keep it in case you want to restore it to factory to sell it or pass it on. On the other hand, you should have a sticker on the machine ( perhaps under the battery ) with your valuable windows 7 product key. It is possible to use that with a downloaded iso file to reinstall 7 when you want to. In that case, nothing lost by using the recovery partition for something else.

Windows 7 Direct Download Links . Probably a good idea to get one right now so you always have it.

 

[Ztruker]

Turn off System Protection for the D: drive. Absolutely no reason to have it active there: Turn System Restore on or off

That should free up some space on the partition.

 

[raccoon]

Thanks for your replies everyone, weighing up the pros and cons I might leave it for the time being. Although I wont be moving the computer on for a while this does not mean I might not go back to windows 7. I have done that Ztruker, with the restore and did a new restore point just in case. A question here.."does windows 8 do the system restores and place them in the same drive as I was thinking of formatting". Cheers everyone.

 

[Ztruker]

Windows 8 system restore is the same as Win 2K, XP, Vista, 7.

 

[raccoon]

Thanks everyone.