Please help me recover a disc segment and partition on my hdd

Windows 10 ver 20H2

Hello! This is my first post and I'm excited to be here. I could really use your help.

I have just upgraded from Windows 7 to Windows 10. I have also reset my pc without keeping any personal files which means this is a good time to sort this out as don't mind going as far as reinstalling Windows if necessary.

I have a laptop sold with a 320gb hdd. I have had it for quite some time and after upgrading to windows 10 I noticed something quite odd. There appears to be 25gb sectioned off somewhere that I don't appear to have access to. I'm not sure how this happened (The only thing that comes to mind is I remember many years ago trying out virtual machines). At any rate I do not have a lot of internal space and would like to fix this.

What I would like to do is recover the 25gb segment and have one d: drive of 200gb for personal files with the rest going to the C: drive OS.

I understand there might be difficulties with the placement? I don't really understand this stuff. I am willing to download third party software if it is free and am looking forward to any suggestions.

Please see screenshot (the game drive is used to back up my data externally).

Thank you so much dalchina for taking the time to address this. And pandas are awesome.

I have downloaded the tool you suggested, but this has led to some confusion because the tool has provided different information to Windows. It seems to think this is a recovery partition in which case I will have to leave it as is. What are your thoughts? Is it normal to have two recovery partitions? Why does Windows think the small one is Recovery but Minitool thinks the other?

Thank you.

Sounds like a very complicated place of which I unfortunately know very little about and I imagine the pandas are just as confused.

You are very much correct! I have learned a lot from you. I see ASUS files hiding away in there, under some metaphorical blankets.

I think I will just need to spit the C drive then, but I have such little space on here one wonders if it's even a good idea. How much room do you think I would need for the C: drive? is there a rule of thumb to apply? You seem to know a lot about computers a general opinion would be most welcome.

You've given me the courage to decide. I'm going to do just that and delete the factory restore partition. This laptop is quite old now (made in China and made well) so I'm pretty sure I have no need of that at this point, and if anything happens I'm past due for a new laptop anyway.

Very interesting to hear how you organize and I think you are very correct about storing data externally. I do back things up that way regularly but I've done so just in case of catastrophic failure.

For me it's an orginsational thing, I suppose I just like the idea of running programs from C;/ and storing personal files on an encrypted storage drive. I haven't done this before, and I'm sure there isn't really a good reason to do so it's not like I'm a spy or anything ...taking notes... that would be silly... *rubs off panda= cute from palms*

But a new OS makes me want to try to be organized in a new way too, you know?

Do you think 100gb would be sufficient for C: drive?

dalchina said:

Glad you like pandas... China's turned them into a money-spinner by renting them out... but also funds a rescue centre for them. There are 2 kinds in China.

BIB, there are and seriously digressing and I won't continue with it.

There is the Chinese Government, no friend to the world or people and then Chinese people, most of whom are great.