[hughesa]

My 3 year old Hi Grade laptop was running very slow so I decided a fresh install of Windows was needed. The laptop came with a External Recovery Media disk which allows me to do this. I put the CD in and restarted my computer as instructed. Up came a screen with two options: reboot and restore backup. I clicked restore backup, it started the installation process, I went downstairs for half an hour, came back up and it was complete. I did not read the screen except for the bottom line which said something along the lines of 'click here to continue'. I did so and was returned to the original screen. I was expecting Windows Vista to just come up so thought maybe I had done it wrong and I should have read the screen to see what it said. I clicked restore backup once again and went through the same process. This time I read the screen at the end which said to click reboot. I did so and here I am on my fresh install of Windows. I am now worried that I have installed Windows twice on separate paritions (I am not sure I fully understand the meaning of that word, just came across it and a definition in the Vista booklet that came with the laptop.) Have I, and if so what can I do to undo this and free up that wasted space?

Edited by hughesa, 21 April 2011 - 02:17 PM.

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Well if you have two separate installations of a operating system on the same hard drive, upon startup there should be a menu asking you to select which operating system you want to use for that session. As you didn't know, partitioning a hard-drive is basically splitting it up into portions, mainly used for installing more than one operating system or leaving a partition dedicated to backup and recovery in case something goes wrong with the main one. Usually, most computers have no partitions, you can find this by easily going into 'My Computer' and seeing how many icons there are under hard drives. Most computers will have just one ( usually "(C:) Local Disk") but in newer computers, some may have factory installed partitions. If you really want to know for sure, search "disk management" in the start menu, then it should come up with something called "Create and format hard disk partitions," click on that and it will show all partitions and information for your hard drive. (Those instructions were for windows 7, I imagine they would be the same for vista, but not entirely sure). Please post back what you find. Hope this helps!

[ZaRMan]

Well if you have two separate installations of a operating system on the same hard drive, upon startup there should be a menu asking you to select which operating system you want to use for that session. As you didn't know, partitioning a hard-drive is basically splitting it up into portions, mainly used for installing more than one operating system or leaving a partition dedicated to backup and recovery in case something goes wrong with the main one. Usually, most computers have no partitions, you can find this by easily going into 'My Computer' and seeing how many icons there are under hard drives. Most computers will have just one ( usually "(C:) Local Disk") but in newer computers, some may have factory installed partitions. If you really want to know for sure, search "disk management" in the start menu, then it should come up with something called "Create and format hard disk partitions," click on that and it will show all partitions and information for your hard drive. (Those instructions were for windows 7, I imagine they would be the same for vista, but not entirely sure). Please post back what you find. Hope this helps!