Setting partitions on ACER laptop - URGENT!

Hi all, I am new to this forum.

The reason my post is urgent is Im due to leave the country soon with my new Acer Aspire 3023!

Im very happy with it bar one thing...the stupid way Acer have partitioned the HD!

What I would like to do is have:

pqservice partition
c: (about 10 gig)
d: (about 20 gig)
e: (the rest of the drive)

I have looked through the previous posts on this and understand the whole deal with the pqservice partition, which is why Im willing to keep it in.

My question is how can I delete the existing c and d partitions, recreate new ones in the sizes I want, then reinstall xp and all the Acer apps?

I have tried the restore/system CD's supplied by Acer and these set eveything back up as before with the dumb partition sizes.

My only thoughts are too somehow delete all the partitions (except pqservice), recreate a c: drive and then use the recovery/system CD's to reinstall?

Anyone managed to get round the Acer dumbness so far?

 

Hi, it's not dumbness ok,and Acer aren't stupid, they do this for a reason. And yes you can, I've done exactly the same with my 1801, I'm suprised you haven't tried it already seeing as you done a restore once already.....
ChrisC

 

hey chriscatt, pls explain

yes I have performed a restore once to see what it exactly what it is doing and no where did it give me the option of creating/deleting or resizing partitions?

also in my opinion the way they setup the c drive as half ur hard disk is dumb, why would I want a 40gig c: drive?!

I phoned Acer support already this morning and even the guy there was in agreement that it was pretty dumb!

 

Doesn't matter how they setup the HD in their laptops, someone would have a reason to complain... We don't all want only 1 partition... we don't all want to have more than 1 partition... We all want to use our systems in slightly different ways... I see you want 3 partitions, and i don't see a point to more than 2 for 1 physical drive... doesn't mean either of us is right or wrong...
What Acer sets up can easily be changed to whatever you like...

 

SMP Homer im not saying that a particular setup is right/wrong! Im saying the way Acer have setup things up and according to their tech support U CANNOT change the partitions to what u want! thats what im annoyed about!

please tell me how I can change the size/number of partitions?

would be greatly appreciated

 

or anyone?!

 

Please be patient; people will post.

It is very difficult to create new partitions - in order to do that, you will have to reformat the hard drive and then create them. That is, unless you have software that can do it for you - check the web for those. Norton PartitionMagic is one.

The reason Acer formats their drives with FAT32 filing systems is because their backup program uses DOS, and without third party extensions, you can't use NTFS in DOS. The two partitions are there so one is for backup, one is for you to use. FYI.

 

Hi, I used a XP CD to delete both partitions, and created one large one, I then put my own version of XP on. As I had to send my laptop back in I used the recovery CD and to my suprise it kept the large partition. I'm not sure if yours will but it worked for me...

 

Forget about reinstalling (you would need a real OS cd not the restore one anyway), instead get yourself a copy of partition magic which will allow you to do what you want on the fly, including deleting the hidden partition if you wanted to.

 

I think people might see my point now, yeah sure if u go and buy a copy of Partition Magic or XP then u can set things up how you want but this is extra expense.

The product Acer supply should work straight out of the box.

I do have a copy of XP pro that is installed on my PC, I may try and follow Chriscatts idea of partitioning it with that, then sticking the restore CD's in. Bit of a hack job I know.

Very dissapointing Acer.

 

also I never mentioned a prob with having the drives in FAT32.

I understand why they need to be in FAT32 - so the recovery utility can work.

But then why does Acer have to use such an archaic method of doing this? there are many other options they could use

 

Re the merging and modifying of partitions without reloading the OS, you really do need a 3rd party tool (PartitionMagic is just one of them). Microsoft just doesn't build the more advanced partitioning functions into XP's disk manager. That is why these 3rd party tools came out. Don't blame Acer. Blame Microsoft. I personally have used PartitionMagic 8 to split and merge partitions on my Acer laptop without rebuilding or reloading. It was quick and painless (but I did make backups first).