Another PQService and Conversion question

Hi guys.
I plan on reinstalling a fresh OS on my 5102WLMi in the near future.

However, in the mean time I decided to play around with PartitionMagic. (I have an older PowerQuest 8.01 version before Symantec bought them).

Anyway, to my amazement, everything went very smooth...I was able to convert both C and D partitions to NTFS. (The C partition ended up with 512Byte Clusters and PartitionMagic was able to convert them to the more efficient 4KB Clusters with no errors whatsoever).

That's one reason I used PartitionMagic rather than the convert command, because I've seen this 512Byte cluster problem before when using that method.

All the Software and utilities work flawlessly (I haven't tried eRecovery, but from what I've read here that won't work anyway now that I've converted to NTFS....nor do I need it)

Now here's the question:
One thing I noticed when viewing the partitions with Partition magic is that the hidden PQService partition is placed at the VERY BEGINNING of the C Drive.

After a search, I see somebody deleted this partition and the Computer would no longer boot because it apparently needs this PQSevice partition to boot.

Is this true?

I have no need for PQService (which I realize is the Acer Recovery partition), because I used Acronis True Image as an experiment to backup just the C (System) partition, and already tried a recovery successfully.

I would like to get rid of the PQService partition (which is the only one I left Fat32), but I sure don't want to get rid of it if the Computer will no longer boot without it.

Anyone know what the result would be or has anyone done this before?

Again, I'm not talking about a clean install here, but rather a conversion to NTFS that I did with the existing OS.

Thanks.

 

Sorry to bump this up, but it's been sitting around for a couple of days and I'm afraid it will be lost in cyberspace.

Anyway (to simplify my earlier post a bit), will my computer still boot if I delete (or delete and merge) the PQService partition?

As I said, it resides BEFORE the system partition when looking at it with partition magic...(On C)
I have no need for it that I can see...if removing it would cause problems, would converting it to NTFS cause problems too?
Not really sure what to do with it...maybe I should have removed it before my earlier conversion?

In my earlier post I mentioned that I converted the C (system Partition) and the D (Backup) Partition to NTFS.

I was able to do this with partition magic while leaving the hidden "PQService" partition alone. I left that Fat32 because I was afraid to mess with it after reading some posts around here.
I saw one thread where somebody deleted this partition and his computer would not boot anymore.


I'll eventually be reformatting, but it's running so amazingly well that I may wait a while.

The thing that's bothering me though, is it won't fully defrag the C drive, and I'm guessing this is because the hidden PQService partition is still part of the C partition and remains Fat32. (It actually completes the defrag and looks good, but analyzing it again says it should be defragged...and it's probably the one red line that won't move...the PQService?)

Any comments or suggestions?
Thanks again.

 

Mine does Seriously the PQService is needed if you want some of the restore facilities to work I believe. You don't need it to use the factory restore images (I don't believe).

Then again, it is fairly small so depending on you depends on if it's really worth deleting it. The red line that won't move (if it's big) is likely to be your virtual memory (page file).

 

Thanks for the reply Arla.

It really doesn't bother me having it there (as you said, it's small and I have enough room).

Have you (or anyone else reading this thread) converted the way I did?
That is, Converted both C and D to NTFS but leaving the PQService as Fat32 and at the beginning of the drive?
(I'm not on the Laptop right now, but I don't think you can see the PQService partition without something like PartitionMagic...maybe I'm wrong)

Guess I'm most curious about the thread I saw here (can't find it right now), where somebody removed that partition and the Computer wouldn't boot because it was before the system partition.

Guess I'll just stop worrying about it until the time comes to wipe this drive clean...but like I said, I can't believe how well it's running right now, so it may be a while before I do that.

(Edit) And no, the 'red line' is very thin- like one line thin but it won't budge....my guess is about the size of the PQService partition? (A wild guess)

 

Okay, first off I can see if you JUST removed the PQService partition (no other changes) then it could cause issues, because it's probably marked as the active partition so that you can do the F10 Boot thing to use it (not sure, I never used it at all).

What I did, (and would do again even if I left the PQ Service partition in place) was just convert the D drive to NTFS, I left C (which I resized to 30GB for programs) as FAT32 because I use Ghost to backup my PC and it plays nicer with FAT32 than with NTFS, just a personal preference.

The PQService is probably larger than the page file, it wouldn't be the PQservice that appears in defrag since it is a separate partition, probably just windows drivers (etc) that are locked from being allowed to be defraged.

 

Thanks again Arla
I think I'll just leave well enough alone for now.....and you're right about the defrag thing.

I was thinking maybe because the PQService was hidden and doesn't have it's own drive letter (but is part of the C partition), that maybe I was seeing that, but it makes sense that I'm not since it really is a separate partition. (And while pretty 'small', would still show a lot bigger than what I'm seeing).

I use Acronis TI and it recovers my NTFS C partition perfectly (I already tried it), so I'll just leave it be for now.

Until I get the urge to mess something up sooner or later.