ASUS recover help (did a search)

I have read through numerous posts on recovering my new laptop and got ready to start the process.

I started the computer up and hit F9 to recover from the recovery partition. So far, so good.

I start the recovery option, then get to the following screen, and I am not sure what to do from this point:

1. Recover windows to the first partition.
2. Recover windows to the whole hard drive.
3. Recover windows with 2 partitions.

I am unclear what this means. What I want to do is have one big hard drive. I think this is option 2, but wanted to check with those in the know to see if this assumption is correct.

If I do choose option 2 will I lose the recovery partition?

Thanks.

 

Before the crash how many partitions did you have?
I suppose that the recovery partition won't get wiped out because it should be on a small (~100mb) third partition on the beginning of the hdd. If it isn't so I can't give you any warranty.
If you need a full disk partition point 2 is the right choice, but I would like to suggest you to make a ~20gb partition for only the system and the progs and leave the other space for you documents and work.
Hope I helped you
Bye Vlad

 

Here are the explanations to the three options.

1. Recover windows to the first partition.
-- will format the first data partition to FAT32 and install the Windows image on it.

2. Recover to the whole hard drive
-- will delete all data partitions, create a single FAT32 partition and install the windows image on it.

3. Recover with 2 partitions
-- will delete all data partitions, recreate two FAT32 partitions, and install the windows image on the first of the two.

I concur with the second poster that it's very unrecommended to have just one partition. The reason is that many bad things can happen to an Operating System (like Windows) partition. If you isolate your data to the second partition and keep only applications and the Windows on the first, it's much less likely that your data will become damaged and corrupt when the OS has problems. Also, if you need to reinstall Windows afterwards, you can just wipe the OS partition without worrying about backing up your data.

What I recommend in your situation:

If you had two partitions before the crash, it's perhaps best to just recover to the first partition and allow the second to remain for data.

Otherwise, you could use my guide here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=81741#sec:preinst to create the partitions (you can choose to ignore the swap partition stuff).

If you really wish to have only 1 partition, choose option 2.

Edit: By "data partition" in the explanation of the three options I mean "all partitions on the hard drive except the recovery partition". The recovery process will always keep the recovery partition intact.

Edit #2. I just saw you say "my new laptop". Why do you want to recover if the laptop is new? The recovery process will leave it in just the state it was when it was new -- so if it's new you do not have to recover. Or is it because you just want one partition? See above for my reasons not to use such a setup. If you really mean you can do it without recovery, you can resize the partition using an utility like qtParted in Linux or PQmagic in Windows.

 

Only one note:
If your system was Windows Vista it will format the disk to ntfs (why you assumed that win xp will make fat32?) and the recovery guide to win xp applies only partly because of the different method used by the system to install and restore (slipstreaming throught win PE using an image of the system).

 

Right, I always forget we're in the "Vista age" now

But other than the type of partition the rest of the process is the same.

About the partition guide: I believe that the partition guide still applies, with one note: Make sure you do not remove your recovery partition if you want to make use of it later on. About the recovery guide: never tested it with Vista so take it with a grain of salt. I was only referring to the partitioning section in the previous post.