Inspiron 1564 Hard Disk Drive Partitions.

Dell does not have a "policy" for this.

Back up the contents of the D: drive, go to Disk Management (right-click Computer, Manage, Storage), right-click the D: partition, and Delete the volume. Then right-click the C: drive, Extend. Then you can recreate the [smaller] D: drive and restore the data to it.

In Windows explorer , with the show hidden folders view on , there are no files or folders shown in the D partition but  in the properties box of D partition  it shows 3.98   GB used on D, and so I can't see a way to back up the contents on D partition  by copying the files using Windows Explorer. 

Then you don't need to worry about it. You can show System Files ... should show whatever is there, but if it is hidden that well, you don't need it, and you can just delete the partition.

Thanks

I Showed System Files and the data  on D partition  shows up  as

pagefile.sys 3985944 KB.

Is it OK to delete that. I would need to Format the D partition as the file it can't be deleted  or moved.- the dialog box reads - "The action cant be completed because the file is open in another application."

One other thing - in disk management  the delete option is greyed out for D partition , Will it still be greyed out if I do format D.

I removed the page file from D partition in advanced system settings. I was then able to delete the D partition.

Now the D partition is deleted and there is Free space to the right of C partition  but the extend volume option is greyed out for the C partition.

http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/laptop/f/3518/t/19675241