Is There Any Method to rebuild the hidden partition?

I cant's use the D2D Recovery during POST,but I didn't delete the hidden partition.The engineer says I should sent the laptop to the repairing center.But I'm not ready to do so.So is there anyone can help me? Thanks

 

If you do a full system restore, it should rebuild everything, including the partitions. Of course you will lose all data.

 

I ran into this same problem (I merged the C: and D: together, but left the Hidden Partition -- PQSERVICE). When I used the restore DVDs to bring my lappy back to Factory Defaults (because the Alt-F10 option no longer worked for me ... I guess you need the D: to use this function) it DID NOT CREATE the partitions the way they were before I fooled around with it; it simply installed windows, acer drivers etc., onto the one large partition that I had created.

 

Did you enable D2D in the BIOS? It may have been disabled for some reason.

 

D2D won't work with a single parition such as C. This is because if you look at the acer restore DVD (same as the hidden partition) it specifies the following.

------------

@ECHO OFF
ECHO Prepare AcerData partition
ECHO Please wait for several seconds.
IF exist D:\Patch\Patch.bat RD D: /Q /S
IF exist E:\Patch\Patch.bat RD E: /Q /S
IF exist F:\Patch\Patch.bat RD F: /Q /S
IF exist G:\Patch\Patch.bat RD G: /Q /S

DISKPART /S X:\P2P3DSK.TXT >>nul
REM FORMAT T: /FS:NTFS /Q /V:ACERDATA /Y >>nul
Start /wait X:\I386\System32\ITWIN.EXE X:\FORMAT.INI
X:\Label T: ACERDATA

-----------------
That reads to the format.ini file
-----------------
SELECT DISK 0
SELECT PARTITION 1
ACTIVE
SELECT PARTITION 2
DELETE PARTITION NOERR
SELECT PARTITION 2
DELETE PARTITION NOERR
CREATE PARTITION PRIMARY NOERR
SELECT PARTITION 2
ASSIGN LETTER=T NOERR
SELECT PARTITION 1
ACTIVE
EXIT


-------------------

Notice the format.ini file? here is what it says

-------------------

[Settings]
OpNumbers=1

[Operation1]
Operation=FORMATDES
Des=T:
FileSystem=FAT32
Title=Format Partition



If you understand 1/2 of what I just posted here congrats, if not don't sweat it. These files are found in the STCDBOOT.iso image inside the inital restore dvd.

Basically what acer does it restore to a bartpe image and then loads windows in a pre-envyroment which includes all of the basics (System32 folder / I386 / Fonts / etc.) and then adds the default images via a modded version of norton ghost.



in reality it is very simple.

And to better explain your situation, you need to send your pc back to acer "if" you have deleted the pqservice partition. Only they can restore the partition table for you (unless you found someone with the exact same make and model and did an image of that.

--ssx--

 

Hey guys,

I recently got a acer 5050 and I want to do a clean install of windows and make 1 partition. Just wondering what this hidden partition does... does my comp have it? I want to just have one partition... is this not a good idea? Thanks for any info.

 

To find out if you have a hidden partition go to

Start > Control Panel > Performance and Maintenance (if in Category view) > Administrative Tools > Computer Management > Disk Management (on the left nav tree)

There you'll find out how your HDD is partitioned, if at all. It likely will be. What the hidden partition contains is the files necessary to restore the system back to the way it was when it was first powered on. If you delete it, it will be lost forever and you'll be screwed if you don't have a disk to reinstall windows with (should the need ever arise)

 

So SSX, I have a question for you ...
I did not delete my PQSERVICE partition, I still have that. However, I did delete my D: partition and created 1 large C: ... is it possible for me to get the D: back without having to send it to Acer? I want to do this so I can use erecovery, etc., again.
Thanks!

 

if you partition your C: into 2 then yes.


http://gparted.sourceforge.net/

open source is your friend. There are guides on how to use this, but it is very straight forward.

--ssx--

 

Ah, fantastic! Thanks for that quick reply! Now, what do I do after that? Do I have to give it a certain label, put specific files on it, etc. for me to finally use D2D? Okay, sorry about all of these questions!

Also, can you check out my thread?
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=85991

Thanks!

 

um your thread has already been explained in full detail of what to do. Not only that but he suggest the same thing I did to you.

Please go out and try it

 

Okay ...
I downloaded and ran the Live CD of Gparted (thanks to the advice of SSX, and LIVEFRMNYC) and everything worked! I resized my C:, and created a D:. I named it ACERDATA (as this is what I remember it being before I wiped it), and it's only 6GB ... but I can resize this later on if I feel the need.

Since I did this I can now use my eRecovery tools in Windows; I can burn the factory default settings (found on the PQSERVICE partition) to a DVD, and I can now even create a backup image of my C: and save it to my D: (although my D: is too small to do this as of yet). These are all things that I was not able to do before I created the D: partition (as they were greyed out).

However, I still cannot use Alt-F10 during post in order to use D2D Recovery. Is this because I have to re-install Windows using my Recovery DVD so that this new installation can recognize that a D: partition actually exists?

Also, my D: partition is currently "flagless" ... do I need to asign specific "flags" to it by using Gparted?

Thanks!

 

Make sure the PQservice partition is hidden and D2D is enabled in the Bios.