delete or remove partition

rovingcowboy · Joined: Jan 26, 2003 Posts: 1515

okay here is the situation..

i got the old mb changed out with the new one.

got the old hd still in use but i repaired installed the os to get it running.

now i put that in drive c and told it to fomat.

so what is the service v001 partition of 4.65 gb's using only 612 mb's.
doing on my hd.

is that a new one from the mb. or the repair install.

why does it not let me delete it. should i delete it if it is made from the repiair install.

i don't think i it is. i think its the one that was added there by lenovo when they first set up the system.
so i should be able to get rid of it right? but i only get a help link if i right click on the partition when viewing it in the disk manager of windows software.

Confused

keithcoleman · Joined: Mar 13, 2010 Posts: 4

Easeus free partition manager works great; I just just it a few weeks ago when I had to replace a hard drive in a laptop. Google it. I got it from download.com.

rovingcowboy · Joined: Jan 26, 2003 Posts: 1515

thanks for the tip but i'm not sure if i should remove that partition or not?

i think its the old lenovo one. but i don't know if the install of xp or the gigabyte mb will make one of those partitions? i can't see any of the info in there so i am not able to tell, and i can't find a way to see the date it was created on?

so i'll look for that program you said but will wait for more info on if i can remove it or not before i do anything with it..

Cool

zzron357 · Joined: Oct 14, 2004 Posts: 65

Hi Keith, More often than not, the recovery partition contains out of date
software, as in XP-SP1 etc. Better to have image backup of latest os.
Helps to know where the partition is, and how boot is managed.
Vista and Win7 have new boot system, so be careful.
I use Puppy linux live-cd and G-Parted most often, but the Gparted and Partition Magic live cd's do the same job. There are other rescue disks with gparted.
With Puppy you can see what is in the Lenovo partition. May be an installer
for os or a factory image. With Puppy you can copy all to an external disk or
flash drive. Then use gparted to rework the partitions. Remove, resize, move,
add, format, whatever. (Warning to Vista and Win7 users, reduce "C:\" first
using Vista or Win7 before adding new part. with gparted.) This retains Vista
and Win7 boot peculiarities. Verify that boot part is set active (boot).
The partition editor mentioned above looks to me to be a windows version
of gparted, but of course one cannot readily manipulate a mounted and active
partition. I partition everything. This pc has XP, 3 major linux distros, all in separate partitions, and 3 versions of Puppy frugal install in one part. And of
course a small linux swap part. used by all linux distros.
Best wishes, zzron
PS: defrag before resize.

keithcoleman · Joined: Mar 13, 2010 Posts: 4

zzron357: Your expertise is way beyond mine. In my case, I was given a laptop from a friend, because I had diagnosed that the hard drive was bad, and he just told me to keep it. I installed a new hard drive, installed Vista from the OEM disk, and then the drivers, etc. I wanted to make a partition on the C drive to back up everything once Vista had gotten all the updates. That's when I searched for a free partition manager, and it did do the trick. I would have liked to do the partition system recovery thing that came on the Dell laptop, but I couldn't find out how to do that.
I will be using an external hard drive to do my backups, too, but I thought it would be handy and fast to keep a current clone of my C drive on the laptop. I used DriveimageXML to do the backup, which is also free. I like free stuff, as long as it works!

zlim · Joined: Mar 11, 2005 Posts: 2747

keithcoleman, the partition recovery only works if you have the original hard drive. Since you replaced it, that is no longer an option.
Most computer manufacturers give directions on how to burn your own restore/recovery DVDs just in case the hard drive dies. Probably your friend did not do that.
Dell also will sell the restore/recovery DVD if the model is not too old. You go to the Dell site and either put in the service tag number or simply select laptop, then model and finally the numbers after the model to see what options you have.

A recovery DVD is good because it contains all the proper drivers for the hardware. Sometimes drivers can be next to impossible to find.

Another option, and I usually do this for every computer I own is to run a program that collects either all the drivers or all the non-MS drivers. I then burn what I have to a CD. If I find something isn't working, I put in the CD and point the device to it. The device can usually find what it needs, driver-wise, on the CD.

Lastly, it is a great idea, once you have any computer set up and working the way you want it to burn an image. That way, if you get malware, a bad windows update, or a program you can't uninstall completely, you load the image on and the computer is back to the way it was when the image was created.
On my main computer, I usually burn an image about once a month. In February because I read that one windows update was creating a BSOD, I installed all the updates but that one. I burned an image of 6 computers then I did the last update. If any had blue-screened on me, I would have restored my image and avoided the update.

keithcoleman · Joined: Mar 13, 2010 Posts: 4

zlim - thanks for the info. I did have the Vista CD that came with the computer, and was able to find all the device drivers on the Dell web site. I burned all those device drivers onto a cd of its own. So everything is working, no question marks in Device Manager, and I hope this new WD 320gb HD will last a long, long time.

zzron357 · Joined: Oct 14, 2004 Posts: 65

Vista can reduce size of C: and create and format new D:
Right click my computer, select manage, then disk management.
Right click C: and choose resize. Easy. (Defrag first) BW/zzron
can do E: also. NTFS of course.

keithcoleman · Joined: Mar 13, 2010 Posts: 4

zzron357- thanks, I did not know that. So I didn't need a 3rd party partition manager after all.

rovingcowboy · Joined: Jan 26, 2003 Posts: 1515

i got the easeus program and it allows you to see the files in the partitions also.

so i checked the dates on them. found them from 1994 to 2008 but none any newer, and found a lenovo folder in it.

so i deleted it. but before i resized the c partition it said to back up my files. so i'm getting a bit tired of it now cause i've got diner went and watched two tv shows. and played several games on this computer picked up email. been in two forums for an hour or so, and the dang thing is still backing up the files to my passport drive.

looks like it will be doing so for some time. who knew it would take over 5 hours. as i had sat here for an hour before i got up and did all the stuff i said above. its now 4 30 pm still 1 /3 rd of the drive to back up.

but at least i'll have full use of the whole hd drive now. Cool