10gb hidden partition (7811FX)

I was wondering... I have my OS (vista 64 home premium) installed on my SSD now and plan to use the 200gb HDD for storage. I used the vista DVD to format the stock drive but still can't kill that 10gb hidden partition. Is there any reason I should keep it now that I reinstalled my OS on the SSD? If not how do i get rid of it? I can't do anything to it in the partition management either.

Thanks!

 

I totally forgot about that thing. Where is it even visible, the BIOS only? I know I've seen it before, but it doesn't show up on anything.

 

You can see it in control panel/system and maintenance/administrative tools-create and format hard disk partitions.

 

I assume you mean disk management. I assume the 10GB partition is for recovery.

Make sure you are looking at the correct disk. You should be able to delete the partition using the vista boot cd.. make sure all you have is unallocated space on the HDD.

I'm using an SSD also but when I first recieved my p7801u I deleted the partitions and did a clean install of windows. I used a windows xp cd to delete the contents of the old HDD. I had no hidden recovery partitions on the HDD after doing this.

If you want to be thorough you can use wipedrive or madboot 9 or other software to do a low-level format of the drive, which will make sure the entire drive is completely blank.

From another thread:

Perhaps the XP boot cd sees the recovery drive (maybe someone can confirm this). I don't remember exactly, but I do know for a fact I did not have an extra 10 GB partition on the drive in disk management (Wasnt visible in XP or 7), so I assume I saw and deleted the extra partition before installing XP that first time.

 

Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Computer Management > Storage > Disk Management

 

ha, it's the first windows boot option in my GRUB loader.. the second one will put me in vista....

I never really paid much attention to it. IF you have backup DVD's you could delete it if you'd like. though i dont' see the harm in just leaving those 10GB there just "in case sh!t"

 

i'll have to try one of the programs recomended by aglobalthreatsk. All i know it i can't delete it with vista and I my vista DVD doesn't even see in exists, when i format the drive, it jsut formats the maine partition.

 

I could not delete it either, and yeah it only formats the rest of the drive, i did the same when i got my other hard drive, let us know if any of the programs work, even though I've got "700" GB i would like to get that space as useable.

 

if you really wanted to, you could probably do it with a linux live cd using the partition tools within' it.

 

Try an XP cd too, probably the easiest to get your hands on..?

 

in xp/vista, just use diskpart to clean it out.

to expand it out to your existing partition on the drive, use a gparted livecd to delete it.

 

did anyone ever figure-out if we need the 10gb partition, and if we dont....how do we get rid of it ? o.o
i would like to have those 10gb put to work ^^

 

The 10gig is gateway recovery. You dont get disks with the computer but you get a partition that has recovery info on it. Make your backup DVDs of it and delete it. Use Gateway Recovery software to make the DVDs.

 

i already have my backup dvds but i dont know how to delete the partition (when i right click on it all that pops-up is "help") =/
any ideas on how to get my 10 gigs back ? ^^

 

I use Gparted. Let it boot up and format the partition to ntfs.

http://gparted.sourceforge.net/download.php

 

Check above. Good program. Why delete it? it's your recovery partition. You MAY need it one day. Hope not, but what if? I can see mine in Disk Management showing 9.77Gb EISA. Havent tried but should be able to manage it from there. Or not. Nevermind. I just tried and nothing. Anyway, just wipe the whole drive with Windows CD/DVD

 

i dont want to clear everything from my hdd and have to re-install windows again...

will this just add the space back to the current hdd?

 

It will not delete all the partitions....just the one you select....its usually partition 0.....than you can extend windows through it also

Gparted is great for many things. Multi-booting, reformatting, extending, and changing flags.....

 

You need to use Partition Magic or a free alternative.

 

I actually got a Windows Vista DVD with my laptop :dunno:.

 

You got a Vista DVD with your gateway P78**?

 

i have a 7811 and mine also came with the vista dvd...as far as i know the 7811 came with them, and the 7801/7805 did not.

 

nice i didn't know the other 78** owners didn't get a vista DVD gateway is cheap but i guess that's how they can sell these babies at the pricepoint they do... I'll have to try that gpart

 

EASEUS Partition Manager is free for 32 bit and seems to be an entire clone of Partition Magic, i think there is something i dont know behind that one.

However if the partition is at the end of the drive instead of the beginning Vista can easily extend the first partition after the recovery has been deleted. It wont however go in the opposite direction, I have tried.

 

You need to download and burn GParted live cd to get rid of the 10GB allocated space for Gateway.

Download: http://gparted.sourceforge.net/index.php

It's free and it would be a waste of money to spend money on software that you will use once.