Recently my old desktop began having random shutdowns. It would shutdown and stay that way for a few minutes before I could turn it on again. Reading about similar problems online, I realized it was a PSU problem.

So today I took it to a store and bought a new PSU, and took the opportunity to buy an SSD (a kingston with 120GB) and also payed the guy to completely clean the dust from inside it and replace the termal paste.

Well, I took it back home and everything works fine. I formatted the PC and installed Win 10 on the new SSD. Works like a charm.

Now,the problem is my old HDD. It was originally divided in 4 partitions, 2 of them, secret.

They appear in windows' disk management program in the following order:

A 100 MB system partition
The Old C: (now an empty partition)
A 450 MB OEM partition
The Old D: (also empty)

The thing is: I cannot create a single partition from the old C and D. Win will only allow me to create two different partitions. Is there a way around this? It won't allow me to extend one using the other as well.

A friend recommended me a website where they suggest using AOMEI Partition Assistant. Is it good?

This may seem like an insane suggestion, but I've found the best way to deal with old Windows partitions is to rub Linux on it.

To explain, Linux often has partition tools that (for absolutely no hitches) often blow the pants out of any Windows tool, and it can be done via a live session, meaning you don't even have to install anything and there won't be any evidence of it being there aside from a nicely formatted drive and a fresh pine scent. And you even get to pick from a variety of tools. Gparted is often trusted and found on rescue disks.

Now since most disks are still formatted with master tables and boot sectors, you're still going to have to work within the limitations of that, meaning there's an order to the partitions and a way to work with those orders. I'm sure that may seem like a tutorial, but I just wanted to make that clear.

Important note: Should you take this route, keep in mind that Unix systems use a different scheme for managing disks. No C/D/E, but rather a /dev/sd× schema.

From what you are saying, I'm stuck with having two partitions from old C and D, since the OEM partition is between them. Is this right?

If so, it's OK, I was hopeful that I could somehow move the OEM partition to the beginning or the end of the Disk so that I could merge the other two or something like that.

(- Backup the data on that HDD)*
- Press Start
- Type "Computer management" > Enter
- (Left side) Storage > Disk Management
- (Right mouse button) Delete all volumes (partitions) on the disk
- Format the whole thing
(- Copy data back from backup)*


*If needed

No, it's great. ^:)

Get it here: https://www.disk-partition.com/free-partition-manager.html

Not exactly. I'm just saying if you want one big partition, you'll have to work with the order they were written in. Partitions can only expand in one direction, typically.

Do you really want to deal with partitions, instead of just formatting?

Simple stuff like this can be easily found by just googling it (or using any other search engine) ...
Just searching for "windows delete partition" gave me this result, somewhere on top:
https://www.digitalcitizen.life/delete-partition-windows

Well, I ended up using AOMEI, killing the OEM partition, and merging all 3 in one. From what I read online, it wouldn't be useful to me because it was from an old windows.

I'm not sure the 100 MB system partition in the old HDD is of any use to the current Win installed in the SSD, though.

Is it safe to kill it? Or should I just leave it there?

Anyway, thanks everyone for the input! You were a great help! ^_^

Actually, while I saw your link, I did a brief search on the subject of OEM's and someone in a forum thread somewhere else mentioned that if it was from a pre-Win 10 era, it would not be useful at all if I used Win 10.

Still, thanks for the link and suggestions.

The system and OEM partitions i've never been able to use, really they are mostly a backup copy of windows in case you have to do a fresh reinstall, but lacking a factory disc it's only useful if the manufacturer activated it for use. As such i'd format them and share them, or something similar.

The first 100Mb 'System' partition could have also been a workaround to ensure where a bootable portion of the hard drive was, Linux did something similar with offering a /boot/ partition first, which has to do with BIOS limits. Once the OS boots it doesn't generally matter afterwards. Yep, direct access/control to delete or change partition types. Or zeroize it blank as an option too.

Yup, turns out killing system was a BAD idea. DOH! I couldn't boot anymore after killing it.

I tried a few things I found online, but in the end I had to kill all partitions and install Win 10 again.

And Win took the liberty of recreating system again on the old HDD, this time with 547 MB, so I suppose it included some form of OEM together with it.

Anyways, lesson learned. Thanks everyone for the support and suggestions once again! ^_^

I've never used Windows 10, but from what I've heard on the internet, it's best to disconnect other disk drives before installing it, because it will create some partitions on the other drives, as you already found out the hard way.

I don't trust Windows 8 or 10, Windows 7 is the last MS OS i'll ever use. Like with my laptop which the harddrive died, i installed Linux Mint on it. And it's working very well.

This ^^^

Trying to install Linux and Windows in 2 different disks and managing boot via UEFI (no Grub), I was banging my head against the wall for 2 days because Windows would mess with the UEFI partition and with UEFI itself (the "ROM"). The damn thing kept deciding on my behalf where and in what order everything should be.

In the end I had to unplug the primary disk, install Windows in the secondary (and let it take control of UEFI), then plug the primary disk in, install Linux and fix everything "by hand". (And keep my finger crossed that Windows wouldn't undo everything on reboot... Which it didn't. At least it behaves after installation.)