Winnipeg Photographer

Date Posted: Nov 3, 2009

Author: Jared Heinrichs

Posted in Command Prompt.

How to delete OEM Partition

This post will cover how to delete an OEM Partition. OEM partitions can be made by Dell or Lenovo. If you use the GUI Disk Management tools you’ll notice you can’t delete the OEM Partition. In order to delete the OEM partition you are going to need to use a command line tool called Diskpart.

First of all this is probably what you are currently looking at:

image

If you hit “DELETE” on the OEM Partition you can’t delete it like other partitions. If you right click on the OEM partition you will notice you don’t have the same options.

image

Normally you’d see:

image

To delete the OEM partition you are going to need to hit “Windows Key” + “R”. This will open the run dialogue box. Type “diskpart” and hit “OK”.

image

This will open a black command prompt like window. Type “list disk”. This will display all the disks.

image

You can verify which disk you want to edit using the “Disk Management Tools”. The Disk management tools can be found by Right Clicking Computer and selecting “Management”.As you can tell from the first screen shot in this post the OEM partition is located on Disk 2.

You must now select the disk with the OEM partition on it. Again in my case it is “Disk 2”. To select the disk you must type “select disk 2”.

image

You can now type “list partition” to list all the partitions on the disk just in case you want to verify you absolutely have the right disk selected.

image

You must now select the partition. In my case it is “Partition 1”. To do this you must type the command “select partition 1”.

image

Now type “delete partition override”.

image

Once you do that you have officially removed the OEM partition on the drive! Congratulations!

154 Responses

  1. Great guide. I was trying to delete an OEM partition on an old Dell drive to repurpose it and it had me stumped.

    2. Azega on January 4th, 2010 at 3:22 pm

  2. Simple, clear & concise.

    Handy guide which helped me have a 75GB USB drive instead of 73GB :)

    3. Captain Fizz on February 19th, 2010 at 11:20 am

  3. What happens with the diskspace on the deleted partition? Is it added to one of the remaining partitions.

    Is it possible to assign the freed diskspace to a particulair partition on the same drive?

    Appreciate your wise reply

    4. Quetzal on March 19th, 2010 at 5:50 am

  4. Unfortunately no it does not automatically add the now free space to the primary partition. You would need to use a partitioning program like Partition Magic. I’ve never tried this program but have heard great reviews on it. http://partitionlogic.org.uk/ If you use it let me know. It’s a free alternative :)

    5. Jared Heinrichs on March 19th, 2010 at 5:58 am

  5. simple and easy for novice like myself.
    only question i have is why it happens (OEM) re apears after restart.

    6. geohfc on April 7th, 2010 at 12:54 pm

  6. Not sure. Have you verified in Disk manager before you reboot that the OEM partition has actually been deleted?

    7. Jared Heinrichs on April 7th, 2010 at 1:26 pm

  7. yes.
    even formatted it and added some files but just goes OEM again.

    8. geohfc on April 7th, 2010 at 1:31 pm

  8. Very Helpful, searched around many sites before I found the correct directions

    Thanks!

    9. Neumonic on April 7th, 2010 at 3:53 pm

  9. just wanted to add that after you do the diskpart…you go back into disk management and right click on the main partition (you will see unallcoated partion you just overrided) and select extend volume…. it will then walk you through it to reclaim that space into 1 partition…

    10. Coolio on April 23rd, 2010 at 2:14 am

  10. I have been battling this for weeks,, simple solution that the help feature made seem very complicated and potentially dangerous,, THANK YOU

    11. Jerry H on April 25th, 2010 at 9:12 am

  11. what will happens when i delete that oem partition can it cause an error or something to my computer :) :?

    12. jheremy taguinod on May 13th, 2010 at 8:59 pm

  12. a few notes that people might have trouble with.
    1. the disk has to be a simple (not dynamic) or at least thats what it told me.
    2. the disk has to be online, otherwise it gives a write protected error.
    3. its a smart idea to do a system backup before attempting, since hitting the wrong number (i.e partition 2 instead of 1) you can wipe out your computer.

    13. Justice on May 20th, 2010 at 12:16 pm

  13. Excellent guide, just started to work with Windows 7 and was getting pissed until I found your guide.

    Thanks

    14. Mark on June 30th, 2010 at 6:01 pm

  14. Not sure if anyone’s still reading this thread, but…

    My OEM partition was corrupted during a failed install of Ubuntu, and I had to re-format that partition as well as the main one where I reinstalled Windows 7. I want to delete the OEM partition and reclaim that space before I try to install Ubuntu again, but I am concerned because in disk management the OEM partition has no drive name, letter, or file system listed (although it is listed as healthy). I get the “help” option when I right-click. Diskpart > List disk only shows one drive, but I can select the OEM partition further down the chain. Thanks

    15. Rebecca on September 6th, 2010 at 6:12 am

  15. If everything is all backed up I would recommend using DBAN (Derek’s Boot and Nuke). This will completely blow away EVERYTHING including partitions. Once you let it run just boot up with Ubuntu. It’s like going back to comepletely fresh drive. Hope this helps.

    16. Jared Heinrichs on September 6th, 2010 at 7:34 am

  16. i wanna know about the OEM partition……What is it?
    The size of OEM partition in my lenovo notebook is 14 GB.
    should i delete this partition or not? what will not damage by deleting it?

    17. Manish Dhiman on September 15th, 2010 at 5:09 am

  17. when i want to create new volume of unallocated disk, it shows some error like(this volume cannot be because you have created max. number of partition). so what should i do for this????

    18. Manish Dhiman on September 15th, 2010 at 5:21 am

  18. The OEM Partition is where providers put a Factory image of your computer. If you ever have to restore the idea is that it can be easily done. I tend to find that they aren’t that great and most of the companies make these partitions way too big.

    19. Jared Heinrichs on September 15th, 2010 at 6:02 am

  19. I found a link that might help your particular issue: http://www.winvistatips.com/cannot-create-new-primary-partition-only-2-primary-partitions-disk-t283373.html

    20. Jared Heinrichs on September 15th, 2010 at 6:06 am

  20. i am not satisfied with your link
    plz tell me any other solution. plz remember that the partition in my notebook are only two(C & D)…………even after it shows errors…..

    21. Manish Dhiman on September 15th, 2010 at 6:30 am

  21. Fantastic so simple really many many thanks

    22. Peter Coulson on September 16th, 2010 at 2:04 am

  22. I cannot thank you enough for this easy to understand instruction, on how to delete OEM partitions. I had 6 Drives (from old machines) all with OEM partitions, it’s great to finanly get rid of them! thank you again

    23. Maurice Jenkins on September 25th, 2010 at 2:20 pm

  23. Great job!

    24. xtharpe on September 26th, 2010 at 3:24 pm

  24. Cool. Really is simple and easy to follow lol… I just have one question do i HAVE to use a partitioning program to regain the free space? Just want clarification because if thats the case then inna sense i dont really have to go and delete the OEM right now….

    25. J Ward on November 7th, 2010 at 9:14 pm

  25. Yes you need to use a partitioning program to regain the free space.

    26. Jared Heinrichs on November 8th, 2010 at 10:47 am

  26. Thank you very much, the TechGuys have been cheesing me off for ages. Fantastic instructions, and so simple to follow, you ever thought about writing manuals for electrical equipment? Thanks again.

    27. xcminglee on November 8th, 2010 at 2:24 pm

  27. I’d love to wrtie manuals. I get cheesed off as well. Glad I could help. :) You should subscribe to my RSS feed for other great tips and tutorials.

    28. Jared Heinrichs on November 8th, 2010 at 2:52 pm

  28. Your support is greatly appreciated. It took me 5 minutes and am now able to Ghost an image that was short .4 GB.

    Thank you very much!

    29. Rick Darnall on November 13th, 2010 at 7:54 pm

  29. I would like to know the consequences if I delete the OEM partition…and why is it used…??
    I have a OEM partition of 14.75GB…which is 100% free….should I delete the partition? as I want to extend the D: drive which is currently 30GB…C: is 187GB..

    Thanks…

    30. Vijay on November 16th, 2010 at 4:42 am

  30. The OEM drive is normally used for one of two things. Holding the system restore files (Most home computers get you to make restore disks). That information that goes onto those disks is normally from this partition. Some manufacturers only give you the option of restoring from that partition. Unfortunatelly that is something you would need to ask your OEM. I have seen where some OEM’s just partition the drive into two separate partitions. One for system the other for Data. I am wondering if that is something that you have with your machine? As always it’s best to consult your OEM for more specific details.

    31. Jared Heinrichs on November 16th, 2010 at 6:19 am

  31. Excellent, thank you so much. I was loking all over for this solution.

    Now I need to get back the other partition I accidentally deleted with diskpart :0 hehheh

    32. Mark Twain on November 21st, 2010 at 4:03 pm

  32. For data restoration I like software from this company – Easeus/

    33. Jared Heinrichs on November 21st, 2010 at 4:16 pm

  33. Excellent stuff.
    Works like a charm on a Toshiba OEM partition.
    Thanks for that.

    34. Terry on November 26th, 2010 at 3:47 am

  34. thanks,thanks,thanks

    35. luka on December 1st, 2010 at 2:14 am

  35. I have deleted my OEM partition now i cant get that partition space i have deleted to my primary drive! HELP!!!!!!

    36. marlon on December 9th, 2010 at 5:26 pm

  36. You need to use a partitioning software to extend the drives free space. http://www.partition-tool.com/ should help. Please subscribe to my RSS feed :)

    37. Jared Heinrichs on December 9th, 2010 at 5:42 pm

  37. Great. Thanks for the help.

    38. Vivek on January 7th, 2011 at 10:35 pm

  38. Thanks!

    39. John on January 16th, 2011 at 3:26 pm

  39. OMG, many thanks!!!!!!!!

    40. Hoicungngaysinh on January 20th, 2011 at 12:15 am

  40. I have the same problem with a Dell OEM partition. All was going well until “delete partition override” which returned…
    “Virtual Disk Service Error:
    The operation is not supported by the object.”
    Any ideas?

    41. -Bill C on January 30th, 2011 at 2:46 pm

  41. Thank you for this. Very helpful.

    42. Alex on February 1st, 2011 at 2:22 pm

  42. You just made my life a whole lot easier today.

    Thank you much!

    43. Dano on February 12th, 2011 at 8:45 am

  43. Thanks mate. i had one 14.5gb.

    44. andy8k on March 3rd, 2011 at 5:44 am

  44. No Problem.

    45. Jared Heinrichs on March 3rd, 2011 at 5:29 pm

  45. You rock. In the past I used to resort to a really, really old-school DOS debug script. Your way is about a hundred times easier. Thanks!

    46. Bruce Sharp on March 7th, 2011 at 11:31 am

  46. i just accidentally deleted my oem partition while i’m reformatting it, do you now how could retrieve it back?

    47. Harvie on March 11th, 2011 at 6:34 am

  47. reformatting my new dell 14r laptop =)

    48. Harvie on March 11th, 2011 at 6:36 am

  48. Hi,

    I cannot select to delete at partition during windows 7 installation. please help.

    Thanks

    49. Erfan on March 22nd, 2011 at 10:26 pm

  49. You can get the error Virtual Disk Service Error: The operation is not supported by the object. When you try to delete a OEM partition on a dynamic disk. You must first convert you’re dynamic disk back to a basic disk by using diskpart:
    select disk 0
    convert basic

    50. Roel van Lisdonk on March 23rd, 2011 at 1:14 am

  50. Outstanding, been a long time since I’ve really messed with Windows and this was very helpful. Simple, direct and to the point, Thanx!

    51. marcus0263 on March 23rd, 2011 at 5:20 pm

  51. Thank you!

    You made it very easy! (The only problem I had was spelling – “delete partition override” doesn’t work if you spell “override” with one “r”). Thank you again.

    52. Patrick on March 30th, 2011 at 1:09 pm

  52. Thanks!

    It solved my troubles (0x8007007B) in Windows Backup in Windows 7. After deleting the OEM partition it ran without any problem.

    53. Herman de Zeeuw on April 2nd, 2011 at 5:29 am

  53. Thanks Jared! (and thanks Google for pointing me here)
    Great job. Very clear..great screenshots.
    Added to my bag of tricks!

    54. Rich Trapp on April 7th, 2011 at 7:48 am

  54. Mate,
    Great help…you are genious I just solved my problem. Being a pain in the ass for a week.
    Keep it up.

    55. Sipa Benny on April 13th, 2011 at 5:50 pm

  55. My OEM partition does not come up when I type “list disk”. What do I do then?

    56. Björn on April 24th, 2011 at 1:28 am

  56. Thank you,
    Someone had put a Acer OEM hard drive in a Gateway the operating system would not even see the hard drive. This cured it I am installing now Thanks again.

    57. Kwesi on April 24th, 2011 at 11:03 am

  57. You must have missed a step.

    58. Jared Heinrichs on April 27th, 2011 at 5:55 am

  58. Thx, you solved a problem f**king Dell support could not.

    :-)

    59. chris on April 30th, 2011 at 2:32 am

  59. I have tried your solution here and it isn’t working for me – I am getting a error that says:

    Virtual Disk Service Error
    The operation is not supported by the object.

    The specified command or parameters are not supported by this system.

    This is a hard drive I took out of my last system (HP) and it does have a OS on it, but not the one I am using on this new system (Gateway).

    Any suggestions on how to circumvent this?

    60. Greg kelly on May 4th, 2011 at 8:22 am

  60. Ok – so I have a chicken and the egg situation here – I have a OEM partition on an extra, dynamic HD, I cannot delete it using diskpart, or the Computer Management GUI, nor can I covert it to a basic disk. Diskpart says I cannot delete the partition on a dynamic disk until it’s converted to a basic disk, but I cannot convert it to a basic disk until I delete the OEM partition…

    There has to be an answer here, but I cannot find it – I have searched the tech forums for Microsoft, and they all just give circular advice, but nothing really helpful for this specific instance…

    Any ideas?

    61. Greg on May 4th, 2011 at 12:27 pm

  61. Thanks, fantastic clear precise and exactly what I wanted…
    little thanks to google too for spot direction to this site..
    Thanks again

    62. Sean on May 8th, 2011 at 3:30 am

  62. For an OEM partition which is dynamic, simply enter command ‘convert basic’ after selecting the partition, then ‘delete partition override’ will work.

    63. Eric on May 13th, 2011 at 5:32 pm

  63. Thank You!

    64. Pawel on May 15th, 2011 at 5:37 am

  64. Thanks brilliant, that did it

    65. M Lewis on June 2nd, 2011 at 12:58 am

  65. Thanks to GOOGLE and Jared Heinrichs for this solution.
    I was trying for hours to delete the “OEM” partition from my SATA drive – Neither WinXP nor WIN7 Computer Management would do it. Nor any of the ‘old’ DOS utils I had on hand.

    Great Article Jared!!!!!

    66. Leroy Joseph on June 3rd, 2011 at 7:58 am

  66. Glad I could help. Add my RSS feed. URL for it is just my domain name. I am sure there are other articles that you might like. Have a great day!

    67. Jared Heinrichs on June 3rd, 2011 at 8:17 am

  67. Tanks alot!

    68. Me on June 6th, 2011 at 8:23 am

  68. You Rock! Worked and it was simple. Thanks!

    69. Patrick Otoole on June 8th, 2011 at 3:13 pm

  69. Simple, straightforward and effective. Thank you so much!

    70. Keith Penton on June 23rd, 2011 at 1:41 am

  70. Thank you! Work as a charme!

    71. Eric D. on June 23rd, 2011 at 8:54 pm

  71. Thanks Jared Heinrichs for your efforts.
    I was trying for hours to delete the OEM partition from my SATA drive and when I´m just to desist I try google and bingo! With the WINDOWS 7 Computer Management it was impossible to do it, I feel very frustraded.

    Thanks for save my day and to add some Gb to my HD Jared!!!!!

    72. Fernando on June 27th, 2011 at 2:26 pm

  72. thanks – very simple instructions that actually work.

    73. joe on June 29th, 2011 at 8:20 am

  73. Many thanks! I used this technique to recover an sd card that I had written an image file to. Used “disk management” to format back to fat 32. Good advice!

    74. Dan Dugan on July 9th, 2011 at 2:16 pm

  74. Thank you VERY much.. Just what I needed and so well set out a chimp (and even I) could follow the instructions..

    GR8

    Thank you again

    Regards

    Chris

    75. Chris Cichocki on July 12th, 2011 at 1:50 pm

  75. Thanks, it works !

    76. Soon Hoe on July 20th, 2011 at 5:41 am

  76. Thanks very much for that.

    They say you learn something everyday and this is by far the best thing I’ve learnt for a long time.

    77. Lee Simpson on July 22nd, 2011 at 10:35 am

  77. Brilliant Jared Heinrichs you are a lifesaver.
    So easy to follow and works spot on
    Excellent

    78. Peter on July 23rd, 2011 at 3:52 am

  78. Very cool, I was reusing an old hard drive in the same machine (I upgraded the existing one to a 2TB). Very concise instructions but a bit scary if you are not sure what you are doing, I had to double (triple) check before I hit the Enter key to delete the partition.

    Thanks

    //*eggbox

    79. eggbox on July 26th, 2011 at 3:44 pm

  79. Absolutely fantastic. You, Sir, are a Star. Thank you.

    It is just such a pity you aren’t in charge of product development at Microsoft…

    80. Peter on August 11th, 2011 at 9:33 am

  80. Thanks for the Movember donation! Cancer can be cured!

    81. Jared Heinrichs on August 23rd, 2011 at 10:25 pm

  81. This was very helpful. Freakin’ amazing to see the lock disappear on that nonsense OEM partition.

    82. Ben on August 26th, 2011 at 8:03 am

  82. Jared, you might want to add that the disk needs to be a basic instead of a dynamic disk. If you try the steps with a dynamic disk you get this:

    Virtual Disk Service Error
    The operation is not supported by the object.

    83. Mike on August 29th, 2011 at 8:57 am

  83. thank you thank you thank you …. i thought my external hard drive is doomed thanks again a million dude i love you :) )

    84. Bradwurst on August 31st, 2011 at 7:49 am

  84. jeesh!!! so simple, many thanks for you help!!!

    85. Felipe Herrera on September 7th, 2011 at 8:07 am

  85. Thank You So Much, it’s work and easy, good Job :) 1000 thumbs up for You, So Many Thanks :)

    86. Rnd on September 13th, 2011 at 9:57 am

  86. Thanks…. was looking for hours for this solution ;) )

    87. Jurgen on September 17th, 2011 at 9:17 am

  87. Many Thanks! Great instructions and a great solution.

    88. Phil on September 20th, 2011 at 5:38 pm

  88. I tried to delete the oem partition in a few different ways, and it didn’t work. After adding “override” to the last line command it finally worked. Thank you for posting this solution.

    89. DP on September 22nd, 2011 at 6:25 pm

  89. Hi, I tried the methods as described but I keep getting this message: “Virtual Disk Service error: Delete is not allowed on the current boot, system, pagefile, crashdump or hibernation volume.”

    I only have 1 SSD on the laptop. However the disk is split up to 5 partitions, which 2 are an extended type and logical type respectively. My objective is to get rid of these 2 so that I can extend the primary partition to utilize the freed up space.

    Please help.

    Thank you.

    90. Ben on September 27th, 2011 at 10:42 pm

  90. Outstanding guide! couldn’t have been clearer! Thanks!!

    91. Fred on September 28th, 2011 at 12:03 pm

  91. Many thanks for the fix. Great display of steps. You saved me after hours of searching and scratching my head. Thanks for putting in the effort.

    92. Marc on September 29th, 2011 at 10:19 am

  92. Hi,

    I have a Dell XPS with one physical disk and 3 partitions: OEM (101 MB, offset 31 KB), Recovery (19 GB, offset 104 MB) and OS (679 GB, offset 19 GB).
    I actually have two questions:
    1. This is supposed to be a 750 GB hard drive, any ideas what happened (there’s no unallocated space), apart from Dell not delivering?
    2. What I would like to do is get rid of the OEM partition and the recovery partition, create one big partition and then repartition in an OS/Programs part (C-drive) and a DATA partition (D:). Do you think this is feasible without actually reinstalling Windows? I have Partition Magic software for XP (same file system, right?). If necessary I’m willing to buy a new version or use another partition manager.
    I know I’m asking a lot. Any help would be appreciated.

    Thanks,
    Albert.

    93. Albert on September 30th, 2011 at 10:45 pm

  93. Thanks for this, didn’t know about this win feature, duly noted and thanks again

    94. Robin on October 5th, 2011 at 11:55 am

  94. Thanks a lot! Very helpful guide!

    95. Rauan on October 14th, 2011 at 3:57 pm

  95. Worked perfect! Thanks!

    96. Dennis on October 21st, 2011 at 1:48 pm

  96. thanks

    97. nic on October 31st, 2011 at 4:06 am

  97. Wow, you sir, are awesome. Thank you.

    98. Alienfish on November 3rd, 2011 at 1:40 pm

  98. Thanks Jared great guide well explained.

    99. Paul on November 4th, 2011 at 8:38 am

  99. hey.. nice guidance….
    it worked for me….
    thanx… :)

    100. Vishnu on November 8th, 2011 at 6:02 am

  100. Just what I needed. Best step-by-step instructions I have ever had the pleasure to use!
    Thanks, Michael

    101. Michael Marquardt on November 8th, 2011 at 6:39 pm

  101. Thank very much!!

    102. Raymond Lam on November 8th, 2011 at 10:14 pm

  102. Thank you very much…worked like a charm!

    103. MMix on November 12th, 2011 at 1:27 pm

  103. This is great. On my E6420, Dell used 39gb of a 500gb drive for their OEM partition. Only 11gb was actually used for “system volume information”. So I have 28gb of addition space. Two things…

    I can’t use Bitlocker on this new 39gb drive. It says the volume is too small. Could that be correct?

    Can I reformat this partition? I have the Dell Windows 7 disk that came with the computer.

    Thanks again.

    104. Steve MacFarland on November 13th, 2011 at 3:23 pm

  104. Thanks for the simpe ccure. Unfortunately it didn’t work for me since DISKPART did not show any OEM partitions even though there was some 11 GBytes missing from my 160 GByte drive and not available as free space. Try as I might I could never find an OEM partition although I know it existed on this ACER that had Vista on it before somebody or something wiped it out.
    Was able to load Win7 on the 149 GBytes remaining but then lost 25 GBytes (11 for Vista and 14 for Win7 as expected). DISKPART Version V 6.1.7600 could be invoked but did not show any OEM Partitions, only the Primary. Any suggestions?

    105. Gene Schneider on November 25th, 2011 at 12:54 pm

  105. Thank you for the clear instructions

    106. Sid on December 3rd, 2011 at 9:12 am

  106. thanks you this post is helpful :)

    107. dirizablik on December 6th, 2011 at 11:42 am

  107. I USE ACER OEM ITS WORKS.ITS AWESOME.MILLION THANKS

    108. rene on December 8th, 2011 at 2:29 pm

  108. U are the man..
    Simple yet effective guide..
    thanks…

    109. R!f@@ on December 16th, 2011 at 4:04 pm

  109. top class guide, saved as a book mark

    110. mohd on December 17th, 2011 at 6:28 am

  110. This is brilliant. Concise and perfect for the problem.
    Many thanks.
    This could have taken ages but with your guide it was simplicity itself.

    111. John on December 28th, 2011 at 7:23 am

  111. Im using windows 7 on an acer, I followed the steps but it says delete is not allowed on the current boot,system,pagefile,crashdump or hibernation volume. ????

    112. vin on December 29th, 2011 at 9:10 am

  112. This worked like a charm! I will be sharing with my friends. Much better than running a Win 7 setup and deleting from the install screens! Thanks a mint!

    113. Terry Cannon on January 4th, 2012 at 11:23 am

  113. thanks, nice post :)

    but I have problem with built-up computer’s partition. There are two partition, OEM and C.
    My C can’t to be resized. I’ve try many tools (windows disk manager, easeus, partition magic, and I have tried to boot up under winPE. but nope.
    how to resize that partition without mess up my data?
    o ya, my computer is Lenovo.

    thanks :)

    114. rully pratama on January 6th, 2012 at 4:43 pm

  114. Worked awesome for me …Thanks a million, it had our IT guys a work stumped.I Used this method on a Hitachi Drive out of an Acer Notebook. Now its just a portable storage drive, and I have full capacity.

    :)

    115. Dave on January 9th, 2012 at 6:39 pm

  115. Thanks a lot. Have a nice 2012

    116. Marco on January 19th, 2012 at 3:12 am

  116. Hello Great tutorial but could someone please tell me how to copy that partition as it is to a ssd and make sure that it works incase the OS fails and start recovery options !!!!

    117. Kaustubh on January 19th, 2012 at 10:19 pm

  117. Argghh! Why didn’t I think of that…so close but yet…..!!

    Thanks so much!

    118. choxsta on February 8th, 2012 at 6:43 pm

  118. Thank you. Finally got rid of oem partition. Had to first “delete” the non oem part, then that allowed me to convert it back to a basic drive and from there I could finish it off!

    119. George on February 10th, 2012 at 6:19 am

  119. thnks yaar i finally i hv got rid frm hidden partition after 4 year in lenovo y410

    120. ravi on February 14th, 2012 at 2:36 pm

  120. Thanks! I was going nuts looking through the [Help] in the Computer Management about ‘deleteing the OEM partition’ and eventually it said in the help section “You cannot rename or delete the OEM partition” I’m thinking ‘bull crap!’ something(body) put it on there via software command so there’s a way to remove it via software command… found it! boo-yah! 1 hard drive… 1 partition and no OEM partition, 35 MB’s but still 1 OS and don’t need a fake ‘duel boot’ screen with the other leading to no where….

    121. Sean on February 16th, 2012 at 11:21 pm

  121. Thank you, I have 8 Hard drive with OEM partitions on them, I thought that you could not get rid of them until i found your site! works great and very easy to complete…… Thank you again

    122. Maurice on February 20th, 2012 at 3:23 am

  122. Hi, I bought a new hard drive for my 2007 power spec desk top pc. I’m now trying to install the os but the pc doesn’t see the hard drive. Please tell me what are the steps for this process. Thank You

    123. Whacky on February 25th, 2012 at 8:45 am

  123. Hey this worked GREAT! Thanks alot

    124. JDBennett on February 26th, 2012 at 11:17 am

  124. DISKPART> delete part override

    DiskPart has encountered an error: Access is denied.
    See the System Event Log for more information.

    125. Raven Lee on March 1st, 2012 at 12:14 am

  125. Great guide, thanks! :)

    126. Mike on March 5th, 2012 at 6:04 pm

  126. Thanks that worked great.

    127. dave on March 10th, 2012 at 7:04 pm

  127. Thanks!

    128. RVN on March 15th, 2012 at 4:34 am

  128. getting error which says “assigning or removing drive letters on the current boot or pagefile volume is not allowed” wat to do… plz help me..

    129. kalpesh on March 17th, 2012 at 3:49 am

  129. Just want to say thanks! I’m Recycling an old Dell HDD and that 55MB OEM partition was pissing me off!

    130. Mike on March 25th, 2012 at 12:35 am

  130. mine, offset says 697GB, which is like all my hard disk. Is it safe to delete?
    Thanks.

    131. yen on March 27th, 2012 at 8:23 am

  131. Great! Thanks.

    132. Billy Gates on April 12th, 2012 at 9:39 am

  132. Great article. Helped a ton!!!

    133. Debu Dash on April 15th, 2012 at 11:52 am

  133. Worked great, Thanks for this really simple, effective guide, Helped me out a lot.. :)

    134. Tacky on April 23rd, 2012 at 9:39 am

  134. You are the man! Why can every guide be as clear and concise as this!

    135. Gavin Moore on May 3rd, 2012 at 1:02 pm

  135. THANK YOU!

    I was looking for a way to delete the OEM partiton on my Lenovo 300GB Sata HDD (took it from a Netbook), because I want to use that drive in another PC. Several forums suggested me to do “this, download that, tweak this” etc. – I am glad I found this guide before doing any of the suggested. The guide provided on this page is simpel, direct and gets the job done in 1-2 minutes!

    Thank you for posting this!

    136. Nicole on July 9th, 2012 at 10:37 am

  136. I deleted the hidden partition, how do I recover that HD space because it does not show up anywhere? (60GB) Or how can I format the full HD to install Windows 7 and have everything all the space on C: ?

    Any Idea: I can remove it from my LAp and format it conecting it to another, I have th cables and everythig but when I connect it to the other pc, it only show the same C: (50GB) D:(10GB) and the other 60 GB are gone… what can I do?

    137. Jorge on July 9th, 2012 at 1:45 pm

  137. Sure wish that all tutorials on the web were as clear, concise, and accurate as this. This worked perfectly!!

    138. Richard on July 22nd, 2012 at 9:51 am

  138. Thanks for this Jared. Great instuctions and refresher :-)

    139. Athol Cohen on August 1st, 2012 at 7:10 pm

  139. thanks. worked like a charm

    140. Shumayl Arshad on September 27th, 2012 at 7:55 am

  140. Excellent instructions; easy to follow. Allowed me to free up 5 GB of unknown OEM stuff on an Acer laptop. Thanks, Jared!!

    141. Colin Stafford on October 28th, 2012 at 8:04 am

  141. You save me !

    142. squirrel on October 31st, 2012 at 7:43 am

  142. Great guide. Thank you

    143. Hugo on November 2nd, 2012 at 11:21 am

  143. I just deleted all the partitions and had the OEM to deal with and this helped me allot. When I went to command prompt and deleted the OEM and went back to Computer Management and I had the hole Unallocated drive and the OEM is gone. This is great if you buy an refurbished drive and they didn’t clean it before the resold it.

    144. Sandman192 on February 9th, 2013 at 1:12 pm

  144. thanks its working fine……………

    145. sureshkanna on February 12th, 2013 at 6:27 am

  145. Thanks! =)

    146. Oskar on February 19th, 2013 at 1:38 pm

  146. Just a Thank you

    147. stealth on March 3rd, 2013 at 12:40 pm

  147. Thank you! Great guide

    148. stockstradr on March 7th, 2013 at 10:42 pm

  148. Thanks for the awesome post

    149. mahesh on March 8th, 2013 at 3:19 am

  149. Thanks for the instructions, super helpful this weekend while helping my mother in law refresh her aging PC with a SSD.

    150. withfries2 on March 10th, 2013 at 4:05 pm

  150. Excellent article. Thank you, good Sir.

    151. Pasi on March 15th, 2013 at 8:46 am

  151. Thank you so much for this great help :)

    152. Vishal on March 29th, 2013 at 10:13 am

  152. Thank you verymuch….. sir

    153. yabesh on April 4th, 2013 at 1:25 pm

  153. Thanks man very cool and simple…. also i like to use cmd!

    154. saley on April 5th, 2013 at 12:07 pm

  154. Wooowwww… thanks a lot Mr.

    I had little bit tension about this before.

    It’s a very good tutorial for me… I have deleted my OEM Partition according to your instructions.

    Thanks

    155. Azeem on April 11th, 2013 at 11:28 pm

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